This graphic novel tells the stories of seven different women who went against tradition and their culture and did what no woman had done before them. The first, Hatshepsut ruled as pharaoh even though women were not allowed. She ruled for fifteen years, but mysteriously disappeared and her history was erased and replaced with her nephes's name. Centuries later her legacy was discovered. Mulan went to war instead of her father so she could protect him. She moved up the ranks and became a general. After the war she was offered a high government position, but she declined and went home. Alfhild was a Scandinavian princess so beautiful her parents locked her away. They said whoever killed the vipers that protected her could have her hand in marriage. After they went back on their promise, Alfhild, ran away and became a Viking. She discovered more women looking for adventure had disguised themselves too and togther they formed their own fleet of pirate ships. Esther Brandeau was a Jewish woman living in France in 1733, where Jews were treated harshly. After surviving a shipwreck, she disguised herself as a man and pretended to be catholic in order to escape life in the ghetto. She was eventually discovered and little is know of her since. James Barry was actually a female. She was a doctor in Great Britain and beyond during the 1800's. She fought for basic healthcare rights for slaves and inmates. She even performed the first successful c-section where both mother and baby lived. Her secret was not discovered until she was dead. Ellen Craft was a black slave. She disguised herself as a white man so she and her husband could escape to freedom. Sarah Rosetta disguised herself as a male so she could fight in the civil war. She was buried under her male name Lyons Wakeman and is just one of who knows how many females disguised as men buried there.

Don't like the illustration style very much, but the stories are great.

An informative and stylish read, No Girls Allowed tells of brave and creative girls and women throughout the ages who defied the social restrictions of their gender. I would have liked to have seen colour in the illustrations, but the feeling of inspiration still came through. I especially liked that the tales ended with an update or sorts on the women, what happened to them when known and what was likely to have happened when not known. These are not simply tales of individuals but of the influence and affects they had on those around them and on other women of the time. ( )

I have mixed feelings about this book. The idea is inspiring, covering the stories of 7 women who had to pass themselves off as men in order to achieve a dream. The graphic book format makes the stories very approachable without seeming like a dense history lesson. But the down side of this is that the stories themselves are a bit superficial, leaving the reader to wonder if the story is pure legend, documented history, or some combination. For example, the story of Mu Lan is inspired by a poem. Was she real? Sometimes the true names of characters are not known, or even their fate. (Was Hatsheput murdered, forced off the throne, or did she resign?). Because the text is pretty sparse in the graphic book format, it feels at times as if elements of the story are left out or that one should consult another source if they really want to know what happened. Perhaps this could be used to an advantage. There is a bibliography at the end, and the curious student could go farther by researching the stories to determine their source. Similarly, it could be used to discuss more critical thinking about literature, and discussing how we can decide whether something is fact, fiction, or a story that combines both.

The art is highly stylized and exotic. At times, though, I had trouble picking out where our hero/heroine was in the frame. I found myself referring back several times to get a good look at the person and then decide who was who. In particular, in the stories with a love interest, I had to double check who was who - "is that Alfhild or Alf?" "Ellen or William Craft?" Maybe that's the point, since the women presumably had good disguises. Perhaps the point was that they didn't stand out from any other characters, but this made the story difficult to follow at times. I must admit I'm new to the graphic book format, so this could be influenced by my inexperience with reading these visual stories.

In the end, the book left me with curiosity about these tales, and I suppose that is a good thing. I think the key is introducing the book in the right way. If you have the expectation that you are getting a history lesson, you might be disappointed. You are really getting an invitation to begin your own history lesson if you find the stories compelling.

This is a really great idea--stories about women who disguised themselves as men to get what they really wanted. From legendary figures like Hatshepsut and Mu Lan to unknowns like Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, these are women who refused to let a little thing like their gender stand in the way of their goals.

At about 10 pages per subject, each story is at best a cursory glance of what happened--at times so cursory I found myself flipping back, sure I'd missed a page because there was no logical flow to the story. The fictionalized accounts contain a lot of speculation, most of which could probably have been clarified with a little research--and if there really are no good accounts of a person, then maybe a story based entirely on hearsay isn't the best choice for a collective biography. There is a list of "further reading" in the back of the book, offering one title per subject. Of these seven works, one is a picture-book translation of a folk poem, one an excerpt from a collection of tales about female pirates, and two are novels.

The art doesn't wow me, either. The artist doesn't use any shading--it's strictly black or white, which makes the chapter about the couple escaping slavery particularly hard to decipher. There are very few distinct "looks" to the characters, making it difficult to know who's who.

I’d have preferred a broader scope to this book, one that focused not just on women who lived as men, but on women who did men’s things as women. While I applaud these women for working within their systems, a book that aims to empower girls with “you can do anything boys can do” undermines its message when it adds “as long as you pretend to be a boy.”

For kids who need a gentle nudge toward gender equality, I'd steer them to [book:Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women], or give them a full biography on one of the women featured here. For older readers and/or the scientifically-minded, Jim Ottaviani's [book:Dignifying Science: Stories About Women Scientists] is an excellent choice. No Girls Allowed had the potential to join these other excellent titles from the historical perspective, but is instead shallow and uninformative. ( )