My Dear Period: A Guidebook by Elena Riu, Sanctuary Publishing
This is a delightful, illustrated guide for girls approaching puberty, full of information about body transformations, hormones, menstruation and more. Alongside the facts are poems, stories, discussions of ideas such as the inner seasons of the menstrual cycle, as well as exercises that give readers the opportunity to explore their thoughts and feelings around the subject. There’s a creative and homemade quality to this guidebook, which I love, and its warm and chatty tone feels really supportive. It offers girls knowledge, understanding and confidence, helping to strengthen a connection with their changing bodies.
The Autistic Teen Girl’s School Survival Guide by Gracie Barlow, Jessica Kingsley Publishers
This slim and easy-to-read guide is written by 20-year-old Gracie Barlow who, with input from academics, shares her (very recent) experience of navigating the school system as an autistic girl. As she points out, there is a history of misdiagnosis and underdiagnosis for girls, so it’s useful to have a book from this perspective. Barlow’s account of her frequently challenging time at school is open and relatable, and she has helpful advice on how girls, together with their families and schools, can implement the adjustments, support and self-care they might need.
Femina Sapiens: Human Evolution and Our Female Ancestors by Marta Yustos, illustrated by Diego Rodríguez Robredo, Thames & Hudson
This fabulously presented, highly illustrated book looks at the story of human evolution as revealed through the discovery of important female fossils. Many will have heard of Lucy, who lived in Ethiopia 3.2 million years ago, “who proved that our ancestors began to walk on two feet thousands of years before they developed larger brains”, but I hadn’t before heard of Adri, “the oldest known skeleton of a human ancestor”, or Benjamina, who was born with a disability and who survived to around 10. The book shares the wealth of information these fossils have given us about where and how our ancestors lived.
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Reviews by Alice Ellerby
Published in issue 95. Accurate at the time this issue went to print.
