Women Explorers: Perils, Pistols, and Petticoats!

by Julia Cummins, Cheryl Harness (Illustrator)

Overview

Meet ten inspiring women whose passions for exploration made them push the boundaries

Though most people have heard of explorers like Henry Hudson and Christopher Columbus, few have heard names like Nellie Cashman and Annie Smith Peck. Unfortunately, most of the brave women explorers have never made it into history books because they lived in times when it was taboo for women to go off on their own. Luckily, the daring women in this book didn't let those taboos slow them down as they climbed treachero's mountains, studied Aboriginal cultures, and lived with Pygmy tribes!

With engaging text and bold illustrations, Women Explorers will finally properly introduce these adventurous women to the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780147517364
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	12/01/2015
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	48
Product dimensions:	7.80(w) x 9.80(h) x 0.20(d)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Julie Cummins was the coordinator of children's services for the New York Public Library for several years. Her previous book with Cheryl Harness, Women Daredevils, received two starred reviews. She lives in Canandaigua, New York.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interviews

About Julie Cummins

LIFE

It began in California on the 6th of July in 1951. It is influenced by a childhood with lots of books mostly about Laura & Mary or Betsy & Tacy or Tom & Huck. I live and work in a brown house near the very center of Independence, Missouri, the Queen City of the Trails. Outside is a tiny yard. Inside is 1 Scottie (Maudie), 1 cat (Merrie Emma), and hundreds of books.

VOCATION

That began with a degree in art education (1973) at Central Missouri State University. After I was a student teacher, I worked as a waitress, and art supply seller, a theme park portrait spinner, a greeting card person at Hallmark Cards and a needlework designer in California. I kept reading and drawing, nursing a crush on the kind of picture-making done by N.C. Wyeth, Maxfield Parrish, and Jessie Wilcox Smith.

I'd gone to Uri Shulevitz' children's book summer-study in 1984 which gave me the courage to go to New York in 1985 to show editors my willingness to illustrate books for them. Mostly, they weren't thankful. Still, I illustrated ten books, night and weekends, until I quit my greeting card job at Current in Colorado in 1989. I sculpted, designed music boxes and Kleenex boxes, won a Republic of San Marino postage stamp painting prize, and finished writing my first book. I discovered, on the Mayflower, a feel for American History.

My days are filled up with researching, writing, and painting (out of a rusty watercolor box I've used since the first Nixon Administration). I go gallivanting all over the country to see historic places and talk about picture books.

VACATION

Friends, books (murder mysteries in particular), movie theaters, and taking my old Scottie for walks - these are my pleasures. Mostly though, my fun is what I get to do for a living. If someone had told my 10-year-old self that I would get to stay home and read, write, and draw all day, I'd have said, "Oh thank you! Thank you, Fairy Godmother!"

"I'd encourage any young reader to scan their libraries and bookstores for more splendid nonfiction by Harness."

—Knoxville News-Sentinel

Editorial Reviews

"Cummins masterfully includ[es] interesting details . . . Informative and entertaining." — School Library Journal

"The figures included in the book are worth remembering not just because they were women but because they were remarkable adventure-seekers and barrier-breakers." — Booklist

"In an engaging, informative style, Cummins highlights fascinating facts about these feisty females 'who conquered the unknown.'" — Kirkus

From the Publisher

"The figures included in the book are worth remembering not just because they were women but because they were remarkable adventure-seekers and barrier-breakers."

Booklist

After showcasing risk-taking gals in Women Daredevils (2007), Cummins introduces 10 "dauntless" women born before 1900 whose little-known deeds "contribut[ed] to science, geography, history, and cultural understanding" at a time when "proper ladies simply did not go gallivanting around the world to explore new territories." Starting with Louise Boyd, who traded stylish dresses for boots and breeches to explore the Arctic, and closing with Daisy Bates, who studied Australian Aborigines for 35 years, Cummins presents breezy three-to-four–page biographies of her unconventional females. The variety of their endeavors astound. Nellie Cashman "rushed" for gold in British Columbia, the Klondike and Alaska; botanist Ynes Mexia collected thousands of plants in the wilderness of Mexico, the United States and the Amazon; Lucy Cheesman sojourned with cannibals while studying insects in the South Pacific. Suffragist Annie Peck scaled Europe and South America's highest peaks. Dutch heiress Alexandrine Tinné searched for the Nile's source and was murdered traversing the Sahara. Delia Akeley became the first woman to cross Africa. Violet Cressy-Marcks made eight trips around the world, and Freya Stark traveled throughout the Middle East. In an engaging, informative style, Cummins highlights fascinating facts about these feisty females "who conquered the unknown." Dramatic watercolor illustrations memorialize each. Should attract aspiring adventurers. (author's note and list of additional female explorers; selected bibliography, websites) (Collective biography. 9-11)

Kirkus Reviews