Shout Out to the Girls

Shout Out to the Girls by Various
Illustrated by Various
Published by Penguin Random House Children’s
Date: 26 February 2018
R.R.P. $29.99

Last week many of you would have seen this book all over social media and I am not surprised because it is AWESOME!  Although written for children/tween’s I believe this book is for everybody, not only because it celebrates strong women, but also because it shares a part of our history about women from now and in the past.

There are many familiar faces in the book, but also quite a few women I hadn’t heard of before such as Alice Anderson who defied traditional roles in the early 1900’s as a successful mechanic and business owner.  What was particularly special about this book is that it celebrates women of all cultures doing things they believe in and breaking barriers, such as business women, sports people, fundraisers, activists, engineers and the list goes on.

The illustrations/portraits have all been created by women and I think the diverse nature of these are a real treat for the eyes.  I have a few favourites though, including the picture of Rachel Perkins which is amazing and really celebrates the person that she is, and shouts Australian Woman.  The other picture which I think is beautiful is the picture of Ella Havelka, the artist has really captured Ella well and her obvious love of dance.

What almost brought me to tears with this book is the shout out to each of the women, where individually they are recoginsed for their trail blazing efforts, for their stand against injustice, for reaching out to those with nothing or just simply for paving a way for future girls and women of Australia in their chosen field.

This book is in no way pushing the feminist agenda, it is simply just showing how we are all capable, even in fields that have been male dominated. Women for centuries have been trail blazers in fields such as molecular biology and Mechanical Engineering and this book gives us the opportunity to celebrate them.

Shout Out to the Girls is my definite pick of the month for a must have book, especially for Australian children and teens.  With all the royalties going to The Smith Family charity you not only get to read the book but help those in need.

Congratulations to the various Penguin Random House women that put this together, I thank you for opening my mind to possibilities.

Thank you Penguin Random House Children’s for the opportunity to read and review this book.