Book Review: Women in Sports -50 Fearless Athletes Who Played to Win

Women in Sports is a wonderfully illustrated book that profiles 50 women that not only excelled at sports but also broke down barriers on their way to the top. 

The author Rachel Ignotofsky, who also wrote ­Women in Science, did a great job of curating the athletes in the book.  The athletes represent a huge variety of sports and many different countries, although it is heavy on American athletes.  This is understandable as American women have had somewhat better access to sports than women of other countries.

Each woman receives a one-page biography detailing their life, the obstacles they overcame and their accomplishments on and off the field.  The bios have illustrations with short factoids in the margin and a full-page illustration on the page opposite the text.  The illustrations vary from athlete to athlete, some show the athletes finesse while others use hard angles to represent strength.  All of the illustrations use muted color tones with bold highlights which are very helpful in bringing the biographies to life.

As a father of a young daughter and son I find this book very helpful and important.  My nine year old daughter has read through it multiple times and keeps looking back at it for more information.  We have had multiple conversations about Simon Biles, Flo Hyman and Tiny Broadwick.  We’ve also had discussions about pay gap and inequality.  This book has helped me start a conversation with her that might otherwise be difficult to start on its own.  For my son, hopefully he is learning that women deserve to paid the same as men for doing the same job.  The pay and media statistics in regards to U.S. Men’s and Women’s soccer where eye opening for both my children and I.

In the end, we love this book.  The stories are detailed yet short enough to read when you just have a moment.  They are inspirational enough to motivate you and informational enough to make you think about the current state of matters.  A good book entertains, teaches, inspires and creates conversation and this book accomplishes all of those in a beautifully illustrated and written style.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this honest review.