Review 586: Wild Girls

Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation by Tiya Miles
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is one of the first two books in a new series called Norton Shorts, by publisher W.W. Norton. They are calling it “Brilliance with Brevity”. Further description “Written by leading-edge scholars, these eye-opening books deliver bold thinking and fresh perspectives in under two hundred pages.”

For this book, and one of the inaugural books for the series, I think it missed the mark. It was short, and I think that was part of the problem with the book. It was even under 150 pages, it needed more length.

The author Miles focused only on a few women and it needed more depth to hold up to that subtitle. I don't think the author proved her thesis. Also, even with these few women it was occasionally a stretch in placing the outdoors with the women, although not for all of them.

The main subjects were: Harriot Tubman, Louisa May Alcott, and Genevieve Healy, Jane Johnson Schoolcraft and Mamie Gavin Fields get a few pages, along with mentions of Sakakawea. Miles also writes extensively about a girls basketball team of Native Americans. It was highly unusual for the time. I do appreciate the author finding some women who may have made a mark during their time, that are not well known. However, I was still wanting more.

The book contained some photos, all in black and white, and the back had an extensive section of notes on sources and quotations. Which then brings the text to 120 pages, yes, very short.