Seven Brave Women

Seven Brave Women

Written by: Betsy Hearne

Illustrated by: Bethanne Anderson

Grade Level: K-3

Genre: Historical Fiction

Do you know who came before you in your family? Do you know where they’re from or what they did? Do you ever wonder what led your family to where you are now? If you have ever wondered what it would be like to find out more about your ancestors then Seven Brave Women by Betsy Hearne is the book for you.

“In the old days, history marked time by the wars that men fought…But there are other ways to tell time… history should be her story, too.” Betsy Hearne tells the story of Seven Brave Women who have come before her and have contributed to her family’s history. She starts with her Great-great-great Grandmother that lived during the Revolutionary War, tracing her family lineage all the way to herself. She uses wars to define the time period of which each woman had lived. And she explains how each woman had done something brave during the time period in which they lived. She ends the story with herself stating, “I am not a woman yet, but I can do great things… There are a million ways to be brave” Concluding that she is from a family of strong women who have done great things with their lives, and she plans to do something great some day, too.

I would keep this book in my library because it looks at a side of history that is rarely seen. It includes strong female characters who have taken risks to achieve what they wanted to. The risks that each woman took are consistent with breaking social norms of the time, or just simply risking their life for the sake of helping others. The characters values are illustrated through the actions that they took, each of which reflects upon the historical time period. Though it did not focus on one time period with a long plot, it is effective in conveying the family history of a little girl. I found the illustrations to be effective; important objects that were stated in the text were followed up by a physical representation in the illustrations. They are very colorful and in each picture there is a bird carrying a pink ribbon symbolically weaving all of the stories together. This would be a good book to use as a prompt for each student to ask their parents/guardians about their own family history. I would love to do a project base off of this book. They might just find something out that they never knew about before. I also think this is a very empowering book for young girls, and would be a good read for women’s history month (March).

Framework standard number 9, “Students will deepen their understanding of a literary or non-literary work by relating it to its contemporary context or historical background.” After reading Seven Brave Women, students will be able to make connections between social norms of society in a given (historical) time period, and analyze why certain actions of these women were considered to be brave. This book also works with standard number 11, “Students will identify, analyze, and apply knowledge of theme in a literary work and provide evidence from the text to support their understanding.” There is one common trait between all of the women in this story; students can prove this by acknowledging a theme and by making connections between each story with knowledge of historical significance in mind.