Rebel Girls Rock: 25 Tales of Women in Music - Rebel Girls - ★★★★

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AUTHOR: Rebel Girls

GENRE: Children's Nonfiction, Biographies.
RATING: 4 stars.

The latest addition to the Rebel Girls series, this collection deals with women who have made a name for themselves in and through music.

Let me begin with a confession. I have read so many Rebel Girls titles by now that I didn’t think I had any new words to describe these books and had planned to stop reading this series. But my kids saw the widget email the publishers sent me, and it contained an image of ‘Blackpink’, the K-pop band. My two girls are huge K-pop fans (whereas I know nothing of K-pop except for they have told me.) They yelled in excitement at the thought of Blackpink in this book. The outcome? I was coerced into grabbing this. So you see, the target market still loves the series, albeit for different reasons. 😄

This mini-collection follows the same format as always. We have the single-page bio on the left side of the book, written in a story format. The right side has a sketched portrait of the same woman, drawn by a female artist, along with one of her quotes.

The bios cover performers from a range of countries, eras, and musical genres. We have representation even from music genres traditionally not considered woman-centric, such as punk and rap. Of course, not all of the women herein are singers. We also have percussionists, music producers, DJs, an so on. There are additional mini bios at the end of a few more talented woman musical achievers. It was nice to see the diversity represented through physically disabled and trans performers.

I love music and was pleased to find some familiar legends such as Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah included in this book. However, I have not kept up with artists who made their debut in the last decade or two, and thus my musical awareness had become quite outdated. (A part of this is because I prefer more mellow music with meaningful lyrics, and today’s auto-tuned tracks are like torture to my ears. Very few exceptions to this. If my daughters read this line, I am sure they’ll say, “Mamma!!! You need to change with the times!” Sigh.)

No surprise then that quite a few of the names were absolutely new to me. For artists whose bio struck me, I Googled more info on them and heard a few songs. I have discovered some new favourites through this added research.

The only (minor) issue with this book is that I am not sure how many of these ladies qualify as “Rebels”. Making it big as a minority performer or a singer who refuses to become stick-thin to pander to modern beauty standards or a group who sings in a musical genre that isn’t “ladylike” can be called ‘rebellious’. But a few of the women herein are just artists who made it big through their talent but without deviating from the norm.

A bit disappointed though that not a single Indian musician made the cut. Usha Uthup would have been so perfect for this title!

Nevertheless, the talent represented herein is amazing, and it will make for a wonderful read/gift to budding musicians of any gender. It will help them learn that talent and determination can get you far. Suitable for ages 7+.

My thanks to the Rebel Girls team and NetGalley for the DRC of “Rebel Girls Rock: 25 Tales of Women in Music”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

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