Fantastically Great Women: Sports Stars and their Stories
by Kate Pankhurst
Interest age: 9 to 11
Reading age: 8+
Published by Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2024
About this book
This inspirational non-fiction book celebrates the achievements of eight fantastically great women from the word of sport. Each was a pioneer in her own field, forging ahead in a male-dominated world where women were consistently excluded, undervalued, and underpaid.
The featured women are from different historical eras, regions of the world, and sports, but the key quality that unites them all is their absolute refusal to take ‘no’ for an answer.
Lottie Dod from Victorian Britain was an incredible sporting all-rounder, winning awards and acclaim for her achievements in tennis, figure skating, tobogganing, golf and hockey, to name but a few; Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei was the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest in 1975; and Brazilian footballer Marta Viera da Silva played in five Olympics and was the first footballer to score in five World Cup tournaments, despite women’s football being illegal in her home country just a few years before she started playing.
Every page of this fun, fascinating book is generously illustrated with dynamic black-and-white drawings, which add visual interest and humour.
Look out for other titles in the Fantastically Great Women series, such as Scientists and their Stories and Artists and their Stories.
More books like this
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Roar
by Beth Mead and Matt Oldfield, illustrated by Mark Long
9 to 12 years
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Run Like a Girl
by Danielle Brown, illustrated by Robin Shields
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We Are All Astronauts!
by Kate Pankhurst
6 to 9 years
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Fantastically Great Women Who Changed The World
by Kate Pankhurst
6 to 12 years
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