The Little Book of Feminist Saints

by Julia Pierpont

Manjit Thapp (Illustrator)

This beautifully illustrated collection honoring one hundred exceptional “feminist saints” throughout history is sure to inspire women and men alike.

“A new set of role models and heroes—‘matron saints’—for the feminist future.”—The New York Times Book Review

“The women in this book . . . blazed trails where none existed before.”—The Guardian

In this luminous volume, New York Times bestselling writer Julia Pierpont and artist Manjit Thapp match short, vibrant, and surprising biographies with stunning full-color portraits of secular female “saints”: champions of strength and progress. These women broke ground, broke ceilings, and broke molds—including
 
Maya Angelou • Jane Austen • Ruby Bridges • Rachel Carson • Shirley Chisholm • Marie Curie & Irène Joliot Curie • Isadora Duncan • Amelia Earhart • Artemisia Gentileschi • Grace Hopper • Dolores Huerta • Frida Kahlo • Billie Jean King • Audre Lorde • Wilma Mankiller • Toni Morrison • Michelle Obama • Sandra Day O’Connor • Sally Ride • Eleanor Roosevelt • Margaret Sanger • Sappho • Nina Simone • Gloria Steinem • Kanno Sugako • Harriet Tubman • Mae West • Virginia Woolf • Malala Yousafzai
 
Open to any page and find daily inspiration and lasting delight.
 
Praise for The Little Book of Feminist Saints

“A whistle-stop tour of inspiring women . . . [The artwork] deserves to be framed in every woman’s living room.”—Diva
 
“Short, snappy and inspiring [with] glorious visuals.”—Psychologies
 
“This beautifully illustrated collection offers daily inspiration and humorous anecdotes to remind you why we worship these women so.”—Hello Giggles

“An enticing collection . . . Pierpont’s pithy write-ups are accompanied by Thapp’s funky, wonderfully expressive color illustrations, making for an engaging picture-book experience for adults. . . . Bold and sassy . . . required reading for any seeking to broaden their historical knowledge.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Small enough to tuck into a bag, this delightful book offers instant inspiration.”—BookPage

• ISBN10: 0399592741
• ISBN13: 9780399592744
• Publish Date: 6 March 2018
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Random House
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 208
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780399592744

Reviews

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

I think this book could be good or incredibly disappointing, depending up what you're looking to get out of it.  Speaking for myself, I wanted another Rejected Princesses.  I wanted a book with the stories of powerful women and all their contributions.  That is not quite what I got, so I was understandably disappointed.

Here is where The Little Book of Feminist Saints excels:

- It highlights 100+ women from different time periods and different walks of life and the contributions they have made.
- It's light and easy reading.
- It's illustrated, which is always fun.

Here is where it fell short for me:
- The entries are organized by "feast day", so you're jumping all over the globe and across time to very different women who have done very different things.  The flow is really broken in that way.
- Some of the entries are well done, but others are less focused on the women in question and more focused on an event surrounding them.  Personally, I'd've preferred information on the women.
- In entries where more than one woman was represented, the blurb tended to focus on one or the other.
- In Josephine Baker's entry, an anonymous YouTube comment is quoted?  That really bugged me.

Overall, I don't feel like I really learned anything from this book and ended up skimming a lot, trying to find portions that talked about the women themselves instead of random things (Anne Frank's entry was largely about a tree).  I believe The Little Book of Feminist Saints would serve well as a pocket guide or daily calendar, but doesn't really suit this book format.  It could be used as a launching board to find incredible women, then research and learn about them elsewhere.