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"A brazen, uproarious collection of illustrations of tough women both historical and fantastical-too awesome, too fierce, and sometimes too weird. These are not fantasy tales of blushing ingenues and happily-ever-afters. Here are the real unsung women of history, real and from literature, mythology and folklore. Illustrated in a contemporary animation style, Rejected Princesses dismisses the 'pretty pink princess' stereotype and profiles, through biography, imagery, wit, and humor, badass women throughout time and from all around the world. Warrior queens, soldiers, villains, spies, revolutionaries, and many more. Women of every era, ethnicity, class and orientation are pictured including a princess-cum-pirate from 5th century Denmark, a rebel preacher in 1630s Boston, a Hungarian blood thirsty countess, and a former prostitute that commanded a fleet of 70,000+ men on the Chinese seas. In Rejected Princesses, Jason Porath presents the female role models we never knew we needed! Fun, feminist, and educational, Rejected Princesses commemorates unknown but captivating female heroes, proving that women have been kicking ass for a long, long time and always will. Who needs Cinderella when you have Rejected Princesses?"--… (more)
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User reviews
So, so many cool women from history to learn about, and all of them just whet the appetite to
It's been a long time since I read this, and while I do think the rating/warning system are brilliant, I did have a few occasions where I didn't quite agree (though that's probably inevitable). The best example I have is a level-1 story in which a woman instructs that the straw costumes being worn by a neighboring tribe (who are, admittedly, invading) should be set on fire. Yikes! That's not in the picture, but it still isn't very nice! Overall, the system is good, though, and a nice addition to a book that could easily be mistaken for a child-friendly book.
Just a quick word of warning, I don't think this would make a good book for young children. Even if Porath does flag which stories would be appropriate for younger children, the format really doesn't lend itself to antsy little kids: there's just one big picture for each woman, accompanied by a page of text. Definitely more for older people to browse than it is for children.
In lieu of a quote roundup, here are some of my favorite "princesses":
> Khutulun (Mongolia)
> Kurmanjan Datka (Kyrgyzstan)
> Tin Hinan (Algeria)
> Sayyida al-Hurra (Morocco)
> Eustaquia de Souza and Ana Lezama de Urinza (Bolivia)
> Mary Bowser (U.S.)
> Josefina "Joey" Guerrero (Philippines)
> Nana Asma'u (Nigeria [Sokoto Caliphate])
> Julie "La Maupin" d'Aubigny (France)
> Josephine Baker (U.S./France)
> Anita Garibaldi (Brazil/Uruguay/Italy)
> Joan of Arc (France)--though I mostly flagged this entry because of my interest in Yolande of Aragon, who I hadn't heard about before
> The Night Witches (USSR)
Inside is more than fifty stories of women who kicked ass and took names, folk tales you never heard of, tribal leaders, revolutionaries, women who outrode Paul Revere, outsmarted popes, outbattled kings, and outwitted empires. Each entry is about a page or two, so no princess outstays her welcome. They're like wikipedia entries, but don't duplicate the dry descriptions. Many include anecdotes and details that bring them to life as real people who existed. This is not a research/reference book. It's entertaining and informative like The Daily Show or CGPGrey or Extra Credits. The author adds a unique flavor/voice that gives away how much he loves this subject and how much he wants to share it.
Plus, each entry has a beautiful illustration of the lady therein, rendered as a kind of Dreamworks/Disney princess. Like each woman has her own movie poster. It even includes notes on how the art includes culture and tidbits not in the story.
Now this volume does have a fault: there are maturity ratings and content warnings for each story, ranging from one to five. But even the tamest wasn't appropriate for kids under ten (IMHO). In fact, just about all of them... well, this makes me sound like the most conservative of parents, but they acknowledge the existence of sex, use words like "plastered", and assume some historical knowledge. It's not that the content is vulgar or adult. It just brings up questions that I don't need to answers yet. Which makes it kind of strange that this book wants to highlight famous influential women, but the content is too old for when girls are their most influenced. Maybe they can release a PG version for the younglings? I want them to learn about these people too. The earlier the better.
Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss
1. The author worked on my favorite animated movie – How to Train
2. He included Alfhild, a Viking princess turned pirate and the real life inspiration for the novel I’m writing!
In Rejected Princesses, Porath includes women who are princesses and commoners alike, who hail from all over the world, from all walks of life, of all manner of life experiences. The illustrations of each “princess” are exquisitely designed to highlight their uniqueness and specialties. Porath also designed a rating system for all the women, but not the usual misogynistic rating of hotness, but of the type of life they led, more similar to a movie rating from G to R. In this manner, Porath has ensured that Rejected Princesses can be suitable to all ages and for younger children, parents can determine which stories to share with their children.
So many of the women included would make terrific role models, especially given their diverse backgrounds, for any young woman, or man, and I absolutely cannot wait for a second volume! Porath continues to add new women to the Rejected Princesses‘ website and I hope that he will include them together in a a book just like with this volume!
This masterwork is in my lay opinion, a perfect example of the blending of history from multiple sides. It has perfect commentary on what counts as historical fact, what should be considered questionable, and what is clearly historical fiction presented as fact.
The author presents a feminist worldview where notable women are enshrined. The women are complex and full with their successes and flaws on display without judgment. That's simply a quality that is truly rare in accessible historical writing.
Not only is the book a beautiful piece of art, it is in perfectly digestible pieces in its large format pages with each woman occupying 2-5 pages. The thoughtful illustrations are given a full commentary of all the meanings and historical or fictional sources that came together to produce the images. I have never read a book where the author provided several paragraphs of explanations of how their historical renderings came to be.