No Girls Allowed: Tales of Daring Women Dressed as Men for Love, Freedom and Adventure

The content of this book is compelling. The style of illustration is especially appealing to young readers. I initially purchased this book for my group of best girl friends. (all adults) We all enjoyed it so much that I gave a copy to my 7 year old son and 5 year old daughter. They both have read the book several times and marvel at the women portrayed. I have given this book to teen age nieces and nephews as well, all of whom enjoyed it. Some of the nieces gave the book as birthday presents to friends. Due to the historical significance, I have given copies of the book to my children's teachers. Boys and girls alike have been interested in the book.

A very enjoyable graphic novel for young people. It is both entertaining and educational, and it will hopefully inspire young people to reach for their dreams despite any obstacles in their way.

The books tells the tales of 7 women who dressed (and mostly who passed) as men in their lifetimes. From well-known names as Egyptian Pharaoh Hapshetsut and the Chinese Warrior Mu Lan to 19th century doctor James Barry and escaped slave Ellen Craft. Each story is told simply by Susan Hughes and Willow Dawson. No judgement are made, no lessons taught (except the obvious - if women are allowed opportunity, they can excel).Dawson's art is neat with a simple chiaroscuro aesthetic, Hughes' prose is straightforward without much embellishment; narration sets the scene and dialogue allows the characters to participate in their own stories.This book is suitable for a young audience, I'd probably go as low as 5 or 6 depending on the child. (War, death and slavery are topics surfaced in the telling of these tales.) Of course, you may end up in long conversations about human society, gender norms and privilege as well. ^_^

Oh my. Where do I begin? I really like the overall sentimate but not the execution. At the end of each story I kind of felt defeated. They died, got married and had quiet lives, or their worst nightmares came to pass!For instance, one of my favorite historical characters, Hatshepsut, they didn't even touch on how she became Egypt's first high priestess! Then it ended with her being blotted out... By a man! (Obviously, his endeavors were unsuccessful as we know she existed now!)The very last line in the book was "We have no idea how many tombstones are actually female soldiers with male names."To be fair, perhaps this book struck a nerve with me because I grew up when it was still okay to tell a child "You _____ like a girl." I privately decided I'd be a man when I need to and I do heavy manual labor in dresses all the time! I'm not as butch as I once was, but women aren't percieved as weak as often anymore. Reading a book about women having to dress as men to get what they needed just kind of reminded me why I'm an angry, raging, feminist.The art is good! Very different! I've never seen a style like that before, and I like it.

I got the book for my almost 10 year old for Christmas. She loves to read and I thought this would be something that would be very inspiring to her. All I had to go on was the title of the book and the description provided in the one review that was available. I have skimmed through the book and while the content is, indeed, appropriate for young girls and I'm sure the stories would be inspiring to them, the "sequential art format" described in the one book review actually means "comic book format". When you open the book it is a black and white comic book inside. As soon as my daughter saw this, down it went. Maybe I should try to encourage her to read it more, but to be honest, as soon as I saw it I lost interest, too. I don't think the female brain is too intersted in comic book style and this book, geared specifically to girls, in my opinion at least, should have been writted like a real book. I was very disappointed.

Disney told us the story of Mulan (who is featured in the book) but this book contains many more examples of women who dressed as men for the purposes of defying and transcending the restrictions of their patriarchal societies. There are black and white illustrations for each story. Educational and inspiring, and great for starting conversations with children about gender expectations and bias.