Buying Options

Kindle Price:	$8.99
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services Price set by seller.

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

Enter a promotion code or Gift Card

Share <Embed>

Bad Girls: Sirens, Jezebels, Murderesses, Thieves and Other Female Villains by [Jane Yolen, Heidi E. Y. Stemple, Rebecca Guay]

Follow the Author

Jane Yolen

Bad Girls: Sirens, Jezebels, Murderesses, Thieves and Other Female Villains Kindle Edition

by Jane Yolen (Author), Heidi E. Y. Stemple (Author), Rebecca Guay (Illustrator) Format: Kindle Edition

13 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$8.99

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$12.00

—

$1.54

From Jezebel to Catherine the Great, from Cleopatra to Mae West, from Mata Hari to Bonnie Parker, strong women have been a problem for historians, storytellers, and readers. Strong females smack of the unfeminine. They have been called wicked, wanton, and willful. Sometimes that is a just designation, but just as often it is not. "Well-behaved women seldom make history," is the frequently quoted statement by historian and feminist Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. But what makes these misbehaving women "bad"? Are we idolizing the wicked or salvaging the strong?

In BAD GIRLS, readers meet twenty-six of history’s most notorious women, each with a rotten reputation. But authors Jane Yolen and Heidi Stemple remind us that there are two sides to every story. Was Delilah a harlot or hero? Was Catherine the Great a great ruler, or just plain ruthless? At the end of each chapter, Yolen and Stemple appear as themselves in comic panels as they debate each girl’s badness—Heidi as the prosecution, Jane for context.

This unique and sassy examination of famed, female historical figures will engage readers with its unusual presentation of the subject matter. Heidi and Jane’s strong arguments for the innocence and guilt of each bad girl promotes the practice of critical thinking as well as the idea that history is subjective. Rebecca Guay’s detailed illustrations provide a rich, stylized portrait of each woman, while the inclusion of comic panels will resonate with fans of graphic novels.

Reading age

9 - 12 years
Print length

172 pages
Language

English
Grade level

4 - 7
Lexile measure

800L
Publisher

Charlesbridge
Publication date

February 1, 2013
Page Flip

Enabled
Word Wise

Enabled
Enhanced typesetting

Enabled
ISBN-13

978-1580891851
See all details

Terri Libenson
550
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $9.99
Ally Carter
1,026
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $7.99
Ann Shen
2,663
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $9.99
Lily LaMotte
496
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $1.99
Sarah Prager
114
Kindle Edition
in Teen & Young Adult Sociology eBooks
1 offer from $9.99
Jen Wang
2,169
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $11.99

Create your FREE Amazon Business account to save up to 10% with Business-only prices and free shipping. Register today

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Girls gone wild! The mother-daughter team of Yolen and Stemple have rounded up some of the meanest (or perhaps just misguided) group of gals history has known. And they have wrapped them in an attractive package that makes reading about their exploits even more enjoyable. The list begins with the biblical Delilah (sorry, Sampson), introduces Cleopatra, stops in England to say hello to Anne Boleyn and (bloody) Queen Mary, and then heads over to America to visit with Tituba, Calamity Jane, and Typhoid Mary. And that’s just a few of the 26 spies, sirens, and female felons the duo takes on. Each subject gets a jauntily written page or so, prefaced by one of illustrator Guay’s terrific full-page portraits and back-ended with a comic book–style page featuring the authors discussing whether the woman was exactly what she seemed. In fact, both an introduction and afterword focus on how history changes its opinion on people’s actions, the way history’s winners get the glory, and whether circumstances shape events more than personalities do. The thick paper, graphic novel–style typeface, and delightful artwork executed in ink and brush and dabbed with digital color will draw readers. The bibliography will lead kids to more about these gals. Grades 7-10, --Ilene Cooper --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Jane Yolen is the award-winning author of nearly three hundred children's books, including SEA QUEENS; LAST LAUGHS; SNOW, SNOW: WINTER POEMS (Boyds Mills), and THE ROGUES (Philomel). She has been called the Hans Christian Andersen of the Americas. Jane lives in Western Massachusetts and Scotland. Heidi E. Y. Stemple is the author of more than a dozen children’s books, several co-authored with her mother, Jane Yolen. Recent titles include PRETTY PRINCESS PIG and NOT ALL PRINCESSES DRESS IN PINK. Heidi lives in western Massachusetts. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00HXYHWG6
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Charlesbridge (February 1, 2013)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 1, 2013
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 48912 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 172 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #2,271,561 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #81 in Teen & Young Adult Law & Crime Nonfiction eBooks
- #143 in Children's Law & Crime Books (Kindle Store)
- #169 in Teen & Young Adult Adventure & Adventurers eBooks

Customer Reviews:
13 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Jane Yolen

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

5 star		55%
4 star		31%
3 star		14%
2 star 0% (0%)		0%
1 star 0% (0%)		0%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Barbara A. Robinson

I loved this book

Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2016

Verified Purchase

I loved this book! So well written and 2 different styles of illustrations. Was very inspiring as far as content and a great example for my own work

One person found this helpful

Helpful

M Rene

Three Stars

Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2016

Verified Purchase

It's a fun book, but I bought it for a young teenage girl, and it's not really age-appropriate.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Joyce L Gonzales

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2015

Verified Purchase

fun book, easy read, facts I didn't know

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Kara Anderson

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2018

Verified Purchase

Such a fun way to learn about history!

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Heidi Spinner

I loved it

Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2014

Verified Purchase

I chose this rating because it really made me think about if these girls were actually bad, or just misunderstood.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

EpicFehlReader

Fun intro to some of history's most rebellious women

Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2016

It was driving me crazy. I picked up this book thinking Yolen.. Yolen... the name tinging some faint bell in my memory... Didn't she write some fantasy novel with dragons or unicorns that I loved as a kid?! Went digging through her bibliography and sure enough struck upon a memory. One of the books I was trying to remember was her fantasy novel A Transfigured Hart, one of the first fantasy novels I ever remember reading, my parents having an old paperback copy when I was growing up.

This book, a combination history book / graphic novel written with Yolen's daughter Heidi, though not quite as fantastic as I recall that fantasy novel being, was still a pretty fun time for what it was -- a book geared toward YA or possibly older middle grade readers to encourage them to pick up more books on these strong women throughout history (each woman featured here only gets a 1-2 page bio, so definitely only meant as an intro to their stories). The writing is pretty simplistic & straightforward, so to adult readers I say don't go in with super high expectations here. But I will note that I found the writing to have a slight feminist lean to it -- though not really surprising given the subject matter ;-)

That being said, it does act as a good sampler read for getting to know these historical figures and the fun, light-hearted format makes it a breeze to read. The graphic novel-like portions are made up of comic panels illustrating Yolen & Semple sharing their own personal viewpoints on each historical woman's life. While at times cute and funny, other times the humor can come off a little forced. I did laugh but eye-roll a bit at the line describing Lizzie Borden as "one whacky woman". Speaking of the panels bit, I thought it was cute how at the end they included scenes of cartoon Jane & Heidi signing copies of this exact book :-)

I chuckled at the Ghostbusters reference in the opening line of the section regarding Madame Alexe Popova, who ran a business of killing off the abusive husbands of battered women (over the course of 30 years, she ends up taking out 300+ wife beaters via poison!)

For parents of middle-grade readers, I might suggest giving this one a once-over yourselves before handing it off to your young bookworms if you are particular about the kind of subject matter they are exposed to or at what age they should know of certain topics. The lives of some of these women do get a wee bit risque in parts for young eyes. One notable being the story of Salome, her section opening with the image of her stripping in front of a room full of men and then later the line, "Most scholars agree she may have been only ten or eleven years old and manipulated by cleverer adults." Just a heads up for parents who have certain age guidelines set for their children about when to have certain topics discussed.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Nicole Levesque

Bad Girls

Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2013

Nonfiction
Recommended for grades 6+

I was reading this the other day when my friend poked the cover and said: "Jane Yolen, as in Owl Moon?" It goes without saying (though I'm saying it anyway), Jane Yolen can't be pigeonholed. In this interesting creation Yolen and her daughter team up to explore some 26 Bad Girls from around the world. 2011's How They Croaked: The Awful Ends of the Awfully Famous by Georgia Bragg and Kevin O'Malley shares a similar format with Bad Girls. Both books have short nonfiction (with pizazz) chapters on particular historical figures. Both books share the not so glamorous sides of those public figures, and both books are incredibly fun to read!
Each chapter is dedicated to one or two bad girls, and what follows is a short comic depicting mother Yolen and daughter Yolen debating the accused bad girl of her guilt or innocence, though it's never as clear as one or the other.
My only qualm about rating this book so highly is that I don't think it truly delves deeply into any one of the bad girls' lives. I knew a lot more about some of these women than others, and because of that some chapters interested and informed me, while others made me want to say, wait a minute, there's more to this story!

3 people found this helpful

Helpful