Normal Women – at a glance
The School Reading Lists’ five word review: Women’s extraordinary experience throughout history.
Children’s book title: Normal Women: Making History for 900 Years.
Children’s author: Philippa Gregory.
Genre: Non-Fiction/History/Humour.
Published by: Red Shed.
ISBN: 9780008725075.
Recommended for children aged: 12+ year-olds.
First published: Paperback February 2024.
This children’s book is ideal for: KS3 children who are interested in history, politics and feminism, tinged with humour.
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Our review:
Normal Women is Philippa Gregory’s fascinating venture into non-fiction historical analysis, examining the overlooked lives of ordinary women across eight centuries of British history. Renowned for her historical fiction, Gregory here applies her storytelling gifts to illuminate real women’s experiences from the medieval period to modern times.
She delivers a fast-paced synopsis of “normal” women achieving remarkable things over a span of nine hundred years, beginning with the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and concluding with the ordination of women as priests in 1994.
The book’s greatest strength lies in Gregory’s passionate commitment to recovering forgotten female narratives. She skilfully uses legal records, letters, and other primary sources to reconstruct lives that official histories have often ignored. Despite the scholarly subject matter, her prose remains engaging and accessible. The presentation of the book – featuring clear headings, mini-illustrations, and brilliant hand-written comments and annotations scattered throughout – makes it easy to navigate the wealth of information.
Cleverly structured by historical period, the book is filled with fascinating and often amusing stories, charting how women evolved from having no property rights and little respect in society to becoming soldiers, highwaywomen, gaining the vote, and achieving acceptance of female same-sex relationships. While some stories are well known, Gregory places emphasis on lesser-known women such as Kit Cavanagh, who disguised herself as a soldier to join the British Army alongside her husband, and Emily Hall, who pioneered women’s rights within marriage by refusing to return to her husband.
Normal Women succeeds admirably in its mission to challenge male-centred historical narratives and to demonstrate how “normal” women have shaped history through their everyday resistance and resilience.
Our verdict:
Normal Women is both an informative and entertaining read – an ingenious way of imparting valuable, insightful, yet often delightfully irreverent knowledge to a younger audience.
An enlightening and important work, it adds a meaningful perspective to our understanding of women’s history. It’s recommended for both Gregory fans and readers interested in social history from a feminist perspective.
Many thanks to Red Shed for the review copy.
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