I really wanted to like this book, because the idea is a good one. The short biographies (3 pages) are enough to encourage and influence girls and young women today, without them committing to read whole books about each person before they know much about them.

Sadly, this book is both blatantly political and full of trite phrases that teens see through right away. For example, part of the lesson in Cleopatra's biography is "Just focus on being the best you that you can be." While there is truth to this phrase, the way it is written is cliche and an immediate turn-off for teenagers. Not only that, but it occurs in the very first biography. The biography of Emma Gonzalez isn't even a biography, but an essay promoting strict gun laws and criticizing adults for their inactivity and their disagreement with Emma's opinions, with a brief bio attached. Jazz Jennings is given an actual biography, and Emma's could have been a similar biography praising her vocal activism and courage. Unfortunately, that is not the case with Emma's chapter.

If the author wanted to focus more on teen activism and less on exceptional biographies, she could have done so and still kept half of her audience. By including someone like Gianna Jessen, who began advocating at age 14 for another kind of life-saving laws, the author could have included a greater diversity of activists by celebrating strong young women on both sides of the political divide in this country. The book would have doubled it's audience with such an inclusion, and it would have justified the author's essay-instead-of-biography approach without alienating readers. Add an editor experienced with teenagers who could have changed the trite phrases to engaging ones, and this would have been a fabulous book to give to any girl or young woman. Sadly, it is not there yet.

This is better than every history book. So inspiring and so powerful. The presentation of this book with the illustrations was also great. Sadly the digital galley was only an excerpt, but I'm sure all the other stories will be as good with that feeling of making us want to change the world.

The premise for "Teen Trailblazers" is great - the ARC was only an excerpt and I believe it is difficult to provide a full review when the complete book is not available to read. At a minimum, I would have thought the stories highlighted would be the ones mentioned in the book description. The e-reader format was a mess to read; but the protected PDF format provided an opportunity to see the stunning visuals that are incorporated to tell the story of girls that accomplished great things while in their teens. I think this book has the potential to be a great conversation with girls.

Free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Book is available October 2nd.

So, I didn't know that this is only an excerpt from the book. But, it's pretty great.
There are many books like this lately, but the differences from the ones that I know is, this one has a good amount of background history in it. So you know more about the person. I enjoy reading a little bit more about Cleopatra and Pocahontas :D I wish there are moreeeeeeee :p
But seriously, I think this book will make a great gift for yourself or for your kids, or anyone kids really ehehe.
I might want to wish this one for myself, as I am sure the hardback copy will be gorgeous!!
And for the illustration? Don't question it anymore, it's so beautiful.

For what it is worth, what women are included in this preview, were good. And I did like how contemporary women and girls were mixed in with famous women of the ages.

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-518" src="http://www.reyes-sinclair.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Screen-Shot-2018-05-16-at-11.45.54-PM.png" alt="" />

<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-517" src="http://www.reyes-sinclair.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Screen-Shot-2018-05-16-at-11.46.03-PM.png" alt="" />

But, it is hard to say if all the women are presented this well, because the galley preview only included a limited number of stories.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

Cannot review as my digital download only contained Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Pocahontas, Emma Gonzalez, Maya Penn, and Jazz Jennings.

***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of TEEN TRAILBLAZERS: 30 FEARLESS GIRLS WHO CHANGED THE WORLD BEFORE THEY WERE 20 by Jennifer Calvert***

The digital galley of TEEN TRAILBLAZERS was incomplete, poorly formatted and without illustrations which prevented me from being able to give the book five stars, though I think the hardcover version will be 5 stars.

Jennifer Calvert does a great job describing teens from Cleopatra to Emma Gonzalez to trans girl Jazz Jennings. Calvert distinguishes fact from fiction with people like the Disney Pocahontas vs the real story.

I recommend TEEN TRAILBLAZERS for middle grade readers as well as younger kids who read at an advanced level.

The description said 30 girls and the downloaded file was only 40 pages long and there weren't 30 girls. Beside it was beautifully designed and inspirational book.I enjoyed it and wanted to read more...It was a good mixture of girls from the different time period.

This book was very interesting and informative. However, I did not know "Teen Trailblazers" would only be around 40 pages long. Still, I learned quite a bit, and re-learned some things I had forgotten from school. People, especially younger adults and kids should read this book! It is written well, has a lot of good information, and I highly recommend this book.

This book is a part of the neatly designed and highly informative picture style books that have come out frequently in the past couple of years. The amount of information for each teen in it is decent as many of these books leave out key parts of the person's inclusion in it. The art in it was simplistic but pretty and helped connect the reader with why these young people are important.

I was so excited at the sight of this book that I didn't even check whether this was just an excerpt so I was beyond disappointed to find only 16 pages available.