Dear Rebel: 125 Women Share Their Best Advice for the Girls of Today - Rebel Girls - ★★★★

AUTHOR: Rebel Girls

GENRE: Children's Nonfiction.

RATING: 4 stars.

In a Nutshell: An inspiring collection of letters, poems, anecdotes, and motivational write-ups on various topics written by rebel girls to rebel girls.

I have been a Rebel Girls fan ever since their first book, ‘Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Tales of Extraordinary Women’, came out in 2016. Since then, I have read quite a few of their offerings, though I have skipped some of their latest books as it was getting too repetitive for me. This book, however, promised a different approach, and I couldn’t resist picking it up.

The usual Rebel Girls books focus on the bios of inspiring teens and women (cis and trans) from across the world, with one page dedicated to the life story of the person, and the other containing their portrait (sketched by a woman artist) and one of their memorable quotes. This book ups the ante by not providing mere bios but by having penned articles by 125 women of varied ages, varied cultural backgrounds, varied skillsets, and varied achievements. The result is a dazzling array of stimulating essays by superstar achievers. As always, the book is inclusive, with representation from all populated continents and varied racial backgrounds. Some of the “women” are just kids, proving to the readers that they are never too young to make a change.

I loved the range of the topics covered by these women. Since they all come from diverse backgrounds, their words also span a range of emotions and advice. Motivating yourself especially after failure, being accepting towards disabled people and people of races others than yours, taking care of the planet, building a big company, beginning your own small business, using your brains/body, pushing the bar – the list of topics is exhaustive and covers almost everything little girls might need to know. These achievers come from sports, politics, business, dance and music, movies and TV shows, environment and nature, and many other fields, but their learnings can be applied in any discipline as the base values are the same. Many pages have a QR code that can be scanned for bonus stories and interviews.

Rather than sticking only to inspiring pep talks, the women choose an assortment of writing styles to put across their point. Thus we get letters (either to the readers or to their own past selves or to a particular family member), anecdotes from their past, motivational essays, recipes that they love, encouraging poems, life lessons, instructions on how to go ahead with certain tough tasks. This variety works in favour of the book because having only motivational write-ups across 400+ pages would have been boring, for sure. The only format I didn’t like were the letters addressed to family members, usually daughters. This created a disconnect between the reader and the content.

I also loved the fact that the book included actual photographs of most of the contributors. Don’t get me wrong: I loved the illustrated portraits drawn by diverse female artists in the other Rebel Girls books. But with such a personal topic, an actual photo works way better.

A slight shortcoming that affected my experience was that the write-ups had not been compartmentalised based on topics. Having 125 contributors is a big deal, and ensures that the book is the lengthiest of the Rebel Girls books at 422 pages. (I think this is too long for this genre and the target age group.) But as I was reading the content sequentially, I found the going somewhat jumpy. One write-up on business tips, the immediate next one on a life-changing personal tragedy, the next one on a challenging adventurous accomplishment, the next one on a transgender woman’s coming-out story – you see how the topics flit across random experiences. This won’t be a problem if readers don’t read the book sequentially but open a random page and read it for their daily dose of pep talk.

One trivial point that most little readers won’t even notice, but that I adored: One of the articles is by Randi Zuckerberg. Many might realise from her surname that she is Mark Zuckerberg’s sister, but the book doesn’t mention her brother nor Facebook in her bio. I love that the authors referred to her by her own self-identity than as “Mark Zuckerberg’s sister.” This is something many journalists are yet to learn.

All in all, if you are looking for one hefty yet inspiring book for the middle-graders in your life, this book is perfect. I wouldn’t recommend this only to girls. Everyone needs a dose of inspiration and inclusive thinking, so this should work for all kids of the tween age range (and even for teens.) Don’t read it in one go; savour the write-ups over a period of time, and watch them make a difference to your thinking.

My thanks to Rebel Girls and NetGalley for the DRC of “Dear Rebel: 125+ Women Share Their Secrets to Taking on the World”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.