Things A Bright Girl Can Do by Sally Nicholls

Things A Bright Girl Can Do by Sally Nicholls   

Published by Andersen Press
Review by Sarah O’Mahoney

Through rallies and marches, in polite drawing rooms and freezing prison cells, and in the poverty-stricken slums of the East End, three courageous young women join the fight for the vote.

Evelyn is seventeen, and though she is rich and clever, she may never be allowed to follow her older brother to university. Enraged that she is expected to marry her childhood sweetheart rather than be educated, she joins the Suffragettes, and vows to pay the ultimate price for women’s freedom.

May is fifteen, and already sworn to the cause, though she and her fellow Suffragists refuse violence. When she meets Nell, a girl who’s grown up in hardship, she sees a kindred spirit. Together and in love, the two girls start to dream of a world where all kinds of women have their place.

This timely novel, aimed at Young Adults, doesn’t shy away from forced feeding and the realities of being a suffrage activist just before the start of the war in 1914. It shows historically, how women campaigned for equality and did not always agree on the tactics, whike managing to feel current and radical, linking up to the present day, where inclusion, multiplicity, and differences of opinion go hand in hand with furthering the cause of equality for all.

This book is available to buy in our bookshop and is part of our fiction collection. You can’t miss the striking green/white and purple striped cover!