This excellent book introduces 21 women throughout history who have dared to do something different, despite being blocked from work, the arts, leadership, and more, all because of their sex and gender. Sarah Albee and Kaja Kajfez offer a vibrant glimpse into these women and their histories.

First off, I want to really praise Kaja Kajfez's gorgeous illustrations. While I read this in ebook format, I'm really looking forward to adding a physical copy to my library. Good illustrations can make or break this type of book, and Kajfez's illustrations go above and beyond.

I also really appreciated Sarah Albee's care and intention that went into her research behind each of the women highlighted. Sometimes it is hard to find women throughout history, not because they didn't exist, but because they are often not mentioned, or deliberately excluded. I also really appreciated the diversity of women included from multiple disciplines.

The writing style was good for its target demographic, though a parent might need to help their child with some details if the reader is a bit younger.

I think my main critique of the book was how much men and their perspective took up space for some women's stories. A few times I wondered if the story was about a man, rather than the woman it was trying to highlight.

All in all, I think this is an excellent addition to any library, and I'll definitely be buying a physical copy.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this eARC. All opinions and comments are my own.

While I enjoyed this book and thought the concept was very cool and interesting, I did find that the illustrations were not my style. I don't think this detracted from my reading, as there aren't many illustrations, but I did notice that my eyes lingered more on the other photos included in the book that were not by the illustrator. Definitely a book I'd recommend to kiddos interested in fashion, history, famous women, etc.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me free access to the digital advanced copy of this book.

This was fantastic. It was an informative exploration of some of the female trailblazers and how they were perceived as troublemakers. I read some of the stories to my students and they were able to connect to people they hadn’t previously heard of. I recommend to all feminists (and by that I mean women and men) who want to learn more, and/or want to show young people how to a “troublemaker” in the best possible way. These women paved the way for the better world women now inhabit while giving incentive for future troublemakers to keep fighting for further change!

The theme of this collection of profiles should be fairly evident from the title. I like the balance between women who wore challenging clothing in order to make change and those who made changes and just happened to do it in pants. If you're interested in change-makers this one is worth a read.

Troublemakers in Trousers by Sarah Albee is a great look back through history at women who defy the rules of their time and exceed expectations. The illustrations are lovely.

I received an advance reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

Troublemakers in Trousers is an eye opening and thought provoking book about twenty female 'troublemakers' who were high achievers, made a difference to women and those around them and who were often bold and gender fluid too. Each female had a section of their own and I loved how the author included photographs, paintings and more from the resources she used and came across writing this book many of which are rare so this was a real treat! Each section has a full page, beautiful illustration of the lady it is about and each one is beautifully done! Some of the women featured in this book were; Frida Kahlo, Joan of Arc, Lady Mary Montague and so many more. I learned so much about so many different subjects in this book and this book is suitable for children and would make a great book for any school library.

This book is so very cool! I enjoyed reading about the many women featured throughout this book, including:

those I thought I knew well (and now I know them better)
others I had heard about,
and many more I had not known until I opened this book.
I know I have said it before; but this discovery of amazing people, places, and things in our world is what draws me to nonfiction. And children’s nonfiction seems to have a way of doing it in a tiny powerhouse of a package!

Both artwork and the storytelling in this book are full of details and just awesome.

Disclaimer: I received a digital ARC of all this book from NetGalley, and these are my honest opinions of the book.

2.5 stars.

Troublemakers in Trousers is a book I wanted to love but ended up having some mixed feelings about. There's a lot to like about it, but some of it was exceptionally frustrating.

Let's start with the bad to just get it all out there. The book actually refers to Mulan as a modern day story with Amazon origins. It refers to it as such alongside Xena and Wonder Woman. No. No thank you. It's a story that can be traced to approximately fifteen hundred years ago in China. While there is certainly a chance that the Chinese folklore was influenced by the real warriors that influenced the Greek Amazon stories, stating such a direct connection without clarification just doesn't seem right. This is the kind of thing that I probably would have walked around repeating as a child, so I definitely feel like it's irresponsible for it to have made it to page here. In a move I found somehow even more infuriating, the book also tells us about the life of Rosa Bonheur, artist and lesbian icon, who apparently lived with a "friend" for forty years. Although she lived openly as a lesbian and had at least two public relationships with women, she is not mentioned as being gay at all. Why? Genuinely, I have no idea. Frida Kahlo is mentioned as having had affairs with women, but Rosa Bonheur is not mentioned as being in an actual relationship, she got the roommate treatment. My issues with descriptions of Mulan (not even a featured biography, only mentioned in a throwaway comment) and Rosa Bonheur may seem minor, especially since they're confined almost entirely to two sentences within the book, but these details were frustrating and completely pulled me out. They also made me question the accuracy of all the information featured in the book.

As for the things I liked. Although my above rant may make it seem as though I hated the book for small segments, I did genuinely like a lot of what was featured. There was clearly a great deal of effort put into ensuring that a variety of women from around the world were featured, there was a clear effort to avoid gender essentialism and transphobic ideas, and culturally appropriate resources and experts were consulted where appropriate (based upon the acknowledgements and bibliography). Some of the women featured are well known figures looked at from a new light, like Harriet Tubman, Frida Kahlo, Joan of Arc, etc, while other women featured will be less known to most readers, like Ellen Craft (who escaped enslavement in the deep south by posing as a white man while traveling with her husband who posed as her enslaved manservant) and Vesta Tilley (a late 19th/early 20th century drag king who performed pantomime shows that mocked wealthy white men). The art is vibrant and helps bring the women featured to life for readers.

I'm honestly disappointed that such seemingly small flaws managed to envelope the overall experience of this book for me, because it could have been great. If there were ever an edition of this book that did not have these issues I would be happy to recommend it, but I'm incredibly hesitant to do so as it stands.

Note: I am grateful to have originally received an advanced readers' copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, but when I ran out of time to finish that copy I switched to the published version on Hoopla, and confirmed the issues I have are in the final published form of the book.

I always enjoy to learn more about different women in history. It reminded me of the Rebel Girls Books (Which I also enjoyed) and I highly recommend this book to everone who likes to learn about interesting women.

There were a few women I didn't knew before reading, but that made it even more interesting for me.

I also really enjoyed that each women got so much space for their storys.

Thank you to NetGalley and Charlesbridge for this Arc!

This is an amazing work of kids nonfiction. Fun, inspiring and informative.

I can see this working extremely well in classrooms and school librarys.

The illustrations are beautiful, and interspersed with historical photos and art as well.

Definitely a bit denser than your average childrens book but its done in an easily accessible way. This book is packed with information. I can also see it having good rereading potential.

Definitely going to be recommending to teachers, parents and young ones looking for a good historical Nonfiction in this age group.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for providing me with an electronic ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book was so interesting and informative. Sarah Albee did a very good job explaining all the lives of these impressive women succinctly and enticingly. I liked the bonus snippets of information, and all the illustrations preceding each chapter. I love when a book can keep me interested while I continue to learn about history and all these important women that came before me.

A fun and inspiring history/biography of women who wore trousers, were labelled troublemakers, bucked the role society told them they were suppose to follow, and became famous (and sometimes infamous). Not all were law-abiding but they decided to make what they could of life and not just live in the confines of what others told them they were suppose to do.

The majority of people are from Western society but it includes people of various ethnic backgrounds, from Europe, North America (which includes Mexico), and Asia, Native Americans, African-Americans and native speakers of languages other than English are represented (I don't know if they ever spoke English or not and that isn't important, their actions are).

This is very readable. Each biography is only 4-8, 9 pages long but is packed with interesting facts of the person's life as well as society at the time. This isn't your middle school or high school text book.. Asides with very current perspectives and language liven up the narrative and pictures richen the experience.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in return for an honest review.

This was one amazing book to read. Richly illustrated, deeply researched, this is an excellent book on women in the past who chose their own path and raised a ruckus along the way [mostly by wearing =GASP= P A N T S!!!!]. I only knew about 4-5 of the women and the rest were all new to me and what an amazing time I had reading about each one of them and the amazing things they accomplished [some of them were completely mind-blowing]. I am not going to go into anymore detail as this is a book that needs to be experienced with no expectations or previous knowledge - go in cold and prepare to LEARN!!

Everyone [girls AND boys] should be reading this book; even adults will learn something [as I can attest; in fact, I have already added it to my book wish-list]. What an amazing classroom tool and a amazing way to continue teaching kids at home. I cannot recommend this book highly enough! Well done!!

Thank you to NetGalley, Sarah Albee, Kaja Kajfez - Illustrator, and Charlesbridge for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Love!! I’m always looking for more books like this for my students and this one hits the activist, feminist spot!! Let’s all be troublemakers in trousers!

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me read this book in exchange for my review.

'Troublermakers in Trousers' by Sarah Albee is a brilliant and comprehensive book championing the stories of women throughout history who have ignored the expectations of what they should wear and role women should play and caused good trouble. I read some of these stories aloud to my nine-year-old and although some parts needed more explanation to her, she found it really engaging. We loved discovering stories of women we had never heard of and further detail about those we had. We thought the illustrations were beautiful too.

I think this would be appropriate for 10+, perhaps a little younger if reading with an adult to help understand geographical details and with pronunciation, of names in particular.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for gifting me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I received an electronic ARC from Charlesbridge through NetGalley.
Albee shares biographies of twenty historical women and a vignette from her own life that explains her passion. Each woman took on stereotypes, biases, -isms to be who they knew they could be. They come from all over the world and various points in history. Albee brings them to life for middle grade readers and pulls them into the worlds they inhabited. I appreciated the informative text boxes included with several of the chapters as well. They offered further understanding of the culture surrounding each woman. The illustrations were vividly colored and captured each woman (or a best guess of the woman). Looking forward to sharing this with my grandchildren.

I loved learning about so many women in history who didn’t conform to society! It was great to see them present from all parts of the world and ways of life. Some were women I had never heard of before. This book is so informative in an approachable way. This was a joy to read and something I would suggest for teachers and parents!

I received an arc via Netgalley in exchange for a honest review.

This book was fantastic, and I can't thank Sarah Albee and Kaja Kajfez enough for creating it. There was so much information in this book, but it didn't feel textbook-like or long winded at all! It was well crafted, illustrated beautifully, and an important book for middle grade readers.

Illustrations, women-centered history, photographs of artifacts, this book has it all. Each historical figure's section includes a brief explanatory timeline of the woman's past, giving readers a window into their lives.