KIDS’ BOOK OF THE WEEK

WHEN WOMEN WERE DRAGONS

by Kelly Barnhill, published by Hot Key Books, £14.99 (ebook £9.99)

★★★★✩

The title of When Women Were Dragons might suggest a fantasy novel, but beneath the surface lurks a living and firebreathing story of women’s battle for equality.

In this book,

Kelly Barnhill would have us believe women have dragons inside them, helping them battle to right inequalities and crush stereotypes.

At the centre of this upheaval is Alex Green, whose aunt becomes a dragon and her mother dies of cancer, all the time bringing up younger sister Beatrice after they are abandoned by their father.

Barnhill’s story is of family, love in its many forms, and the female members of that family who fight for what they think is right.

The reader is borne along on the peaks and troughs of a battle for recognition, as if they were riding a dragon through the skies.