This is a funny and clever look at women’s rights and the feminist movement. The story revolves around Maggie and her grandmother Margaret who when she was younger had burnt her bra as a protest against ‘attitudes that were old and worn out’. She explains to Maggie that in her younger days women were not regarded as important as men. Women were expected to stay at home, cook and clean and look after children.
To Maggie these thoughts belonged to the dinosaur days. It is through the clever use of comic style illustrations of dinosaurs and cave people that Maggie’s thoughts and its resultant humour is woven into the story. Maggie is scandalised when she learns women were not always allowed to vote and outraged at women not being allowed to do some jobs. If women were working away from home ‘who would look after the cave children’ or cook or clean, people queried. Maggie could bit believe such strange ideas existed and these are made all the more ironic by images of Maggie’s father cooking in the background. However, it was learning that women only got paid half what men were paid for doing the same job that really fanned the fire of outrage for Maggie. With her Gran’s encouragement she vows to keep the fire alight and continue the fight for women to have equal rights and to banish those dinosaur thoughts and ideas.
The book is a clever and imaginative way to explain women’s rights to younger generations. To describe some of the historic presumptions about what women should or should not do as dinosaur thoughts or ideas gives a clear perspective. The digitally created animation style illustrations are described by Aśka as
allowing the representation of old ideas and an inability to change as well as a hook to attract younger readers and present an understandable explanation of the struggle for women’s rights. The endpapers continue the dinosaur and cave person theme with a series of framed illustrations of Maggie’s imaginings of her family living as cave people.
Today’s younger generations are often unaware that there was a time when their mothers would not have been allowed to work at some jobs, or that women were not allowed to vote or any number of other things taken for granted today. ‘When Grandma Burnt Her Bra’ is a clever way to teach this history and to dispel complacency. As Maggie’s Gran would say, ‘You keep that fire burning’.
Picture Books for Older Readers
