I thoroughly enjoyed this short read about women of adventure. I only wish it had been a bit longer! It was especially interesting to hear how nature and the outdoors impacted and informed Black and Indigenous women, as their stories are so rarely told and their safety in these spaces is something to be protected.

The narration was also wonderful. I wish this were a longer series, an episode or more in-depth story for each woman chronicled.

Thanks to HighBridge Audio and W.W. Norton & Company for the ALC!

Favorite section was the bit about Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, as someone from Michigan I was unaware of this part of our history! Found the book overall to be enjoyable and informative even though some stories seemed a little bogged down in the details while others felt like they could have been expanded upon further.

Wild Girls
By Tiya miles

Introduction is a poem by Lucille Clifton the earth is a living thing published in the book of life, describes in poetry the beauty of earth.

Preface
The ice bridges, looking at the Ohio River, from family memories of the river freeing solid to more substantial stories of the underground railroad. It shows how the freezing of the river led to freedom and tragedy, featured in Toni Morison’s book Beloved.

Way finders, the explorers that allowed the bid for freedom.
The limitations of race and Geography limit the areas we are welcome with the danger of the environment. The social dangers of alcohol and physical abuse limit the outside world of young girls. Others because of suspicion were prohibited.

The gist of the stories in this book shows how restrictions by society for white, black or native girls caused the strength and holistic physical activity.

chapter 1
STAR GAZERS

Araminta Minty Ross as a child was an adventurer who uses nature to provide a safe place from exploitation and abuse. Changing nature into a helper in her personal struggles. As an adult in her marriage she is known as Harriet Tubbman. She used her knowledge of ecology, and her personal observation to not only save herself, her family and over 80 slaves. Her story continues to be a source of inspiration for the author throughout the book.

The story of falling stars showed the nature of slavery. From the wonder of the event slaves mark their age. To the owners fearing the end of days showed the restricted knowledge of the diaspora of slave families.

Jane Clark had her story written in 1897 by Julia C. Ferris, a white teacher and local educational leader, the manuscript narrates portions of the life of Jane Clark, an enslaved woman who escaped to Auburn in 1859. Shows the reality of enslavement. She was protected as a child by a kind owner. Only to be sold to aid her white owners avoidance of military obligations.

Harriet Jacobs, the slave of Andrew Knox, was born in Edenton, North Carolina, in the fall of 1813. Until she was six years old Harriet was unaware that she was the property of Margaret Horniblow. She shows the danger of exploitation of slaves. Their labor and bodies were used by whims of fractious and violent masters. Harriet Jacobs struggled to avoid the sexual victimization that Dr. Norcom intended to be her fate.

Laura Smith Haviland, a quaker in her writing, shows the nature of growing up between the lines of freedom and slavery.

Chapter 2

Word Smiths

Louisa May Alcott, a wild child, used inspiration from her own life in her famous novels, Little women and its sequels. She struggled against female role models and ideals. This started part of the change to suffrage and women's rights. Placid but dangerous Frog pond is where she became an abolitionist.

Suffrage writers did attempt to remake the images of The stories of Pocahontas and Sacagawea changed the populist look at native female roles, from the Disney portrait of pocahontas and Sacagawea not as permission for exploitation but as women of strength and character. There are more later descriptions of the lives of these two women and the reality of their personal and emotional struggles.

Native american and other activists

Zitkála-Šá, also known as Gertrude Bonnin ,Native American musician, writer and activist who fought for women's suffrage and Indigenous voting rights in the early 20th century. As a Dakota writer, competed in state wide competitions. She won second prize. She showed the intelligence of avocation. She later wrote several works chronicling her struggles with cultural identity, and the pull between the majority culture in which she was educated, and the Dakota culture into which she was born and raised. The later chapter will show this as a contrast with other native american experiences.

Dr. Mabel Ping-Hua Lee was born in Guangzhou (Canton), at only 16, advocating for Asian Americans to march in the 1912 suffrage parade.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a prominent journalist, activist, and researcher, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was an advocate for suffrage, and fought against lenching.

Anna Julia Haywood Cooper, her manifesto “A Voice from the South”, and first African American outdoor girl club, while being a professor she established campfire girls.

Jane Johnston Schoolcraft, also known as Bamewawagezhikaquay was a child of indigenous eastern woodland community. She was part Irish, but her exposure to the wilderness caused problems with her husband's political views. She loved the nature of her wilderness, and subtle political techniques. She wrote poetry of the land and environment. She used her poetry to show the knowledge of her homeland and nature poetry. Wrote her poetry in her native language. Lake superior is the juxtaposition of native character and poetry.

Mamie Garvin Fields personal account of southern upbringing,Lemon Swamp and Other Places: A Carolina Memoir. The story of her golden childhood was tempered by the treatment of her ancestors during the Civil War. Showed a beautiful secret room in the day time, and a boogeyman's pit at night. Showed the history of her family that haunted and politicized her.

Tony Morrison was the person to label these words smiths, writers are like flood waters that show the nature of the world, and its elemental forces.

Chapter 3
Game changers
Anna Julia Cooper, Give the girls a chance. In her book about the south. In 1892 a teacher and formerly enslaved child. Education could better the race and society. The limitations by labels cause more of the social inequity of the world.

Genevieve Healy, in 1888 the government pushed her tribe into reservations in Montana and wrote about the Native American school experience. Education of Native American children in forced schools caused many problems. The federal indian boarding schools, carceral institutions that removed children from their homes and forced the eradication of their culture. She is a member of the girl's basketball team at the Fort Shaw school in Montana.

Zitkála-Šá, red bird also known as a Dakota student at the Indian boarding school Gertrude Bonnin essay collection first published in 1921 American Indian stories. Wrote in naturalistic language in her poetry about the separation from her family and culture.

Josephine Langley, a ball player for her small fort boarding school, represented and challenged anthropological theory of race superiority. She trained her girls to more traditional forms of team work and physical strength.

Chapter 4
Bluemoon

Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction author and a multiple recipient of the Hugo and Nebula awards. The first and only black writer of science fiction for much of her career sheWon McArthur genius grant . First and only for the McArthur fiction writer. Published 12 novels over time. Was the first African American Black speculative fiction and African futurism. Nasa named the site of a landing for Mars for rover perseverance. She had concern about the natural world, she was an environment and containment writer.

Dolores Huerta, Co-founder of the United Farm Workers Association, Dolores Clara Fernandez Huerta is one of the most influential labor activists of the 20th century and a leader of the Chicano civil rights movement.

Grace Lee Boggs was an American author, social activist, philosopher, and feminist. She is known for her years of political collaboration with C. L. R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya in the 1940s and 1950s.

As a kid who spent a lot of my childhood years outdoors this was wonderful for me.

This explored the often overlooked relationship of American women and girls with nature, with a special focus on the experience on Black and Indigenous women and girls.

While there were some stories I was vaguely familiar with I learned a lot from this enjoyable read.

This was an enthralling book about an underrepresented subject: black and indigenous women in nature.
Black people in nature is an underrepresented topic in general, but this book explores how women such as Harriet Tubman used their knowledge of the nature around them in order to survive. Survive slavery, survive while fleeing, and survive while freeing others.

It also talks about how Indigenous women's knowledge of nature was often taken from them or used in favor of white men or white settlers. Indigenous women's roles in sports were mentioned as well, and how their athleticism gave them freedom from residential school, but also led to them being used as a form of entertainment for white people.

Overall, a really good book if you're interested in reading about the intersection of women of colour and nature.

✨ Review ✨ Wild Girls: How the Outdoors Shaped the Women Who Challenged a Nation by Tiya Miles; Narrated by Janina Edwards

I'm a Tiya Miles stan so I went in with high expectations and wasn't disappointed. Miles provides a series of short chapters exploring how girls and women throughout US history have explored and played and worked in the wild, learning from the wild all the wild.

These women -- some well known like Harriet Tubman and Louisa May Alcott, others lesser known like Jane Schoolcraft and the girls of the Fort Shaw boarding school basketball team -- challenged bounds of racism, sexism, and other oppression in the U.S. Tubman used the stars and her knowledge of the outdoors to bring enslaved peoples to safety; Alcott wrote a tomboy Jo, celebrating her own youth in the outdoors; the girls of the Fort Shaw girl's basketball team introduced areas in the US to women's basketball and setting a whole new standard of play (pushing back against the strictures of boarding school life).

The book's short and isn't necessarily providing new and original content as much as providing a new spin on historical content and literature analysis that's already out there. I loved this interpretation and the ways it challenges us to look for women & girls in the outdoors. She ends by challenging us to think about equitable access to green spaces in the U.S. today and our responses to climate change

I enjoyed the audio version -- the narration was great, and while I wished at some points I had a paper copy to refer back to, I really liked it. There are a few places where she's making a digression to provide context where it's not clear if it's diverged into digression versus changing directions, but I think that's probably more clear in the written text.

Overall, a great way to delve into mini biographies of some incredible women and the historical context of the times in which they lived!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre: history / environmental non-fiction, outdoors and nature, mini-biographies
Setting: U.S.
Length: 4 hours, 4 minutes (under 200 pages)
Pub Date: Sept 19, 2023

Read this if you like:
⭕️ biographical vignettes of US women from a variety of backgrounds
⭕️ stories of women in the outdoors
⭕️ historical narratives focused on race & gender & inequity

Thanks to Highbridge Audio, W.W. Norton, and #netgalley for an advanced e-copy of this book!