This was an especially great alphabet book and art book.

I had expected the “A to Z” to be the names of the women artists featured but instead each letter reflects something about the artworks. Qualities of, subjects of, materials used, etc. etc. and I thought that was a creative and brilliant choice.

I was surprised that I was familiar with the art of only 6 of the 26 artists and had heard of only a couple of the others. I learned quite a bit when reading the book and now want to learn more about many of the women and their art. I appreciate the diversity with the artists and the art covered.

Normally I would want the artists’ actual work to be shown in a book like this one but I think that the illustrations in this book capture well enough the artists’ works, though since I was familiar with only a fraction of the original art I can’t feel completely confident that this is true. I did love the illustrations though, either way. They were aesthetically pleasing and captured what they were aiming to represent and they worked well with the text portions of the book.

I didn’t want to wait for the hardcover edition (and am back to feeling less and less safe being in the library) so I borrowed an e-edition. The Kindle edition was okay but I’m going to reread this book as a paper edition. I found most of the e-book readable but some of the text was too small to read and zooming in wasn’t an option and clicking to get popups with bigger text did not work well at all. This was a particular problem with the author’s note giving more information about each artist at the end of the book which was frustrating because it was a really interesting section and it was a struggle to read it all.

I’m grateful that I found this book thanks to Elizabeth’s review. I enjoy books like this and have read many of them. This is a particularly good one.

I would love to have read this book or a similar book when I was young and liked it well enough now that I’d like to own it. This book would make a great gift for girls ages 7-12, especially if they have any interest in art or in learning about successful women. I’d like this book to be in every public library and every school library.

4-1/2 stars, a half star off because even one art work by each artist would have made this book nearly perfect. ( )

An abecedary of women artists, organized not by name but by subject, shape, or concept (Flower, Line, Quilt). Each double page spread features one artist and a short description of the kind of art they're known for (e.g. "Betye Saar is known for assembling materials within a box...").

Back matter includes author's notes on the artists, each one followed by a prompt for the reader/artist ("Paint, draw, or color an egg in a place that you would never expect. What object would you choose to paint into a background to make it feel surreal?")

I do with that an example image of each artist's work had been included, but likely acquiring the rights would have been a nightmare. ( )