“Noisemakers” Graphic Anthology Brings World-Changing Women to Life for Middle Graders

A new book from Kazoo Media has brought together 25 of today’s best women and nonbinary comic artists to offer engaging graphic biographies of “25 women who raised their voices and changed the world.” And when the promotional blurbs on the covers are from Jacqueline Woodson and Alison Bechdel, you know it’s going to be good.

I’ve been a big fan of editor (and lesbian mom) Erin Bried’s amazing (and queer-inclusive) magazine for girls, Kazoo, ever since I interviewed her in 2018, and I’m thrilled to see this book that builds on the magazine’s content with the same goal of inspiring young girls to be “strong, smart, fierce, and true to themselves.” Noisemakers (Alfred A. Knopf), aimed at middle-grade readers and up, is populated by inventors, activists, artists, adventurers, entrepreneurs, and more, organized into sections titled Grow, Tinker, Play, Create, Rally, and Explore. Some of the names may be familiar, such as Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Julia Child. Others may be new to many readers, such as Raye Montague, the first person ever to design a ship using a computer; Junko Tabei, the first woman to summit Mt. Everest;  C. J. Walker, the first American woman to become a self-made millionaire; and Kate Warne, the first woman detective in the U.S., who foiled a plot to kill Abraham Lincoln before his inauguration. Regardless of familiarity, though, readers will likely learn new things about these women in these informative and intriguing six- to eight-page profiles. (Subscribers to Kazoo may know some of them already; 10 of the profiles appeared previously in the magazine; the rest are new for this collection.)

Most notably, these are not biographies written just to put their subjects on a pedestal. Bried prefaces each section with a paragraph framing how the women’s lives and achievements are relevant to us today. For the “Create” section, for example, she writes, “Great artists and makers, like the five in this chapter, use their tools to make us think and feel more deeply than we could have ever imagined.” For each person profiled, too, she offers a list of their characteristics, habits, and likes and asks readers to “count all the things you have in common” with them. Ballerina Maria Tallchief, for example, loves to dance, has strong legs, will practice until something is perfect, and wants to see the world, among other things. This a marvelous way to draw readers in and help them feel like they, too, can make their mark on the world.

The profiles offer a dazzling array of graphic and narrative styles, with first-, second- and third-person perspectives and stories told as if in the present, past, and future of their subjects’ lives. Fifteen of the subjects are White; 10 are people of color, predominantly Black. Almost all of their stories were drawn and written by #OwnVoices creators.

The creators themselves are a who’s-who of top talent, including Emil Ferris, Lambda Literary Award winner and three-time winner of the Eisner Award (roughly equivalent to comics’ Academy Awards); Alitha E. Martinez, another Eisner winner, who has worked on Marvel’s Iron Man and Black Panther: World of Wakanda comics (the latter with Roxane Gay and Ta-Nehisi Coates); GLAAD Media Award-winner Kat Leyh (Supercakes, Lumberjanes); the Eisner-nominated Little Corvus; Chan Chau, known for their work on the queer-inclusive, Emmy Award-winning Danger & Eggs from Amazon; the two-time GLAAD-nominated Brittney Williams; and GLAAD-nominated Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, co-creator (with Mariko Tamaki) of the queer-inclusive Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, which just last week was named an an honor book for the American Library Association’s Michael L. Printz Award. Those are only a few of the 25 contributors, and each has even more accomplishments, but to cover them all might take another book the size of Noisemakers.

Given the large percentage of queer creators, including Bried herself, it’s surprising that none of the people profiled are clearly queer. Yes, many historians now think that Frida Kahlo, Josephine Baker, and Eleanor Roosevelt had relationships with women as well as men, but only their relationships with men are mentioned in the book (though the focus for all of the book’s subjects remains strongly on their accomplishments in the world, not their relationships). We do see some expansive gender expression, though, as two of the women, explorer Jeanne Baret and detective Kate Warne, are shown disguising themselves as men. (To the best of my knowledge they still identified as women.)

Still, the short biographies of the creators at the end of the book don’t hesitate to use the word queer or use they/them pronouns as appropriate. And again, both Newbury Award-winning author (and queer mom) Jacqueline Woodson and MacArthur “Genius Grant” winner Alison Bechdel have blurbs of praise on the covers. There’s queer here, especially since the book is targeted at kids of an age to look up further information about the subjects, artists, and “blurbers” on the Internet.

One might quibble about a few other omissions—I would have loved a mention of Julia Child’s work as an intelligence officer for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA, and her development of a shark repellent, arguably the first recipe for which she is known. But biographies this short are necessarily selective, and the choices made feel solid overall.

Making the lives, motivations, challenges, and accomplishments of these women accessible and relevant to young readers is no small feat, and Noisemakers accomplishes that brilliantly. This is as inspiring, informative, and compelling a book as one could hope to find for this age range (and beyond). I read through it in one sitting (since I’m like that), but it’s the kind of volume that invites browsing and revisiting. It’s also simply a well-produced volume, solid and bright, and would make a great gift. Let’s hope it’s followed by several sequels showcasing an even wider array of noisemakers.

In the meantime, check out the quarterly Kazoo magazine—the first children’s magazine ever to win a National Magazine Award—for ongoing inspiration from even more awesome women (like Pose dancer and transgender advocate Leiomy Maldonado) along with puzzles, activities, and more smart, fun content.