- Bad Girls: Sirens, Jezebels, Murderesses, Thieves & Other Female Villains by Jane Yolen
Mother/daughter team Yolen and Stemple ponder the question of just what makes a bad girl bad. Bad press? Bad breaks? Bad boyfriends? Bad, bad nature? The misdeeds of two dozen notorious dames from throughout history are the fodder for these brief, breezy prose bios, each of which is followed by a one-page dialogue between the authors, rendered in comic-book format. Yolen and Stemple make an honest effort to lay out the life stories in as neutral terms as possible, saving their analysis of what went wrong for the interlude pieces, intergenerational conversations that are set in a place or during an occasion that hearkens to the subject’s story. They chat about Anne Boleyn’s affairs while enjoying tea near the Tower of London, discuss Countess Bathory’s blood-soaked quest for youth during pedicures and brow waxing at a day spa, debate the Wild West felonies of Belle Starr while shopping for boots (yes, Heidi, definitely the over-the-knee lace-ups with studded heels!). Yolen tends to favor the more broad-minded, charitable view of the ladies’ motivations, while Stemple generally takes a more censorious stand. Readers may find themselves aligning with one of the authors, but they won’t be able to easily dismiss the opposing argument offhand. Guay’s comics are key to developing the intellectual workout offered by the authors’ conversations, and her glamorous full-page portraits of the bad girls opening each chapter capture the mystique that keeps the women in the spotlight over decades, or even millennia. An index is included, and short bibliographies are appended for each chapter, with enough material readily accessible online to guide teens who want to know more.