Things a Bright Girl Can Do: Sally Nicholls Hardcover – 7 Sept. 2017

An excellent book and a great introduction to the suffrage movement and the reception to and consequences of the outbreak of World War I in Great Britain. Having previously read My Own Story by Emmeline Pankhurst, I was aware of a lot of the events of the suffragette and suffragist movement and whilst this would be a much better introduction to those events for children, I do think that it could have been made a bit more accessible still for younger readers. It seemed to me that in order to provide a detailed and properly authentic depiction of the era, the author has perhaps made the book a little too long, slower paced and with too much period language to really engage younger girls and particularly boys. For YA readers (and indeed adult readers of character-driven historical fiction), it is great.

Another really interesting novel from Sally Nicholls, this time about the suffragette movement in the UK and the First World War. Don't be put off by the cover - the novel is much better than that! Also the rather misleading title - it is taken from a real book of the time called patronisingly "Things a Girl can do" which presumably didn't even dream of all the things that women really can do, like voting, running a business, becoming First Minister of Scotland... As usual Sally Nicholls is excellent at getting under the skin of all her varied characters and making the reader anxious to find out what happens to them. There is a wide mixture of people across the classes, from the very poor to the prosperous middle class, which the writer handles skillfully.

I have a 9 year old bookworm she absolutely loved this one She has a real interest in suffragettes and suffragists at the moment

I really enjoyed this YA historical novel, telling the stories of three very different girls involved in the suffragette movement. The differences between the girl’s social class and their upbringing as well as the suffering of the east end deprivations at the beginning of the war are especially well drawn.

This novel taught me more about WW1 and the suffrage movement than I had gleaned in the previous 50 odd years of my life. I was engrossed by the story and fully engaged with the characters. The book is well researched and brilliantly written.

This is a Very Good Book. It begins in 1914, in London, around the women's suffrage movement. The three teenaged protagonists (two definitely women; the third might be a butch woman or a trans masculine person if she was living a century later) are rounded and believable, and their stories are compelling. Highly recommended.

Interesting story, following lives of 3 girls - plus information about history of the suffragettes.

This book is a tremendous read fir teens abd young adults. it accounts many events based off of true stories. It brang light for me in one of my grey areas of knowledge, snd gave a tremendous insight into the Sufregette movement. I would say however that it veers a little of-course from the topic but the quality of writing remains throughout. Contains mature themes.