Rebel Girls Champions features 25 inspirational stories of young female athletes coming from all over the world and from various social and racial backgrounds. Some of the athletes featured were familiar to most of us like Michelle Kwan (the U.S figure skater) and Serena Williams (the U.S tennis player) while there were some new and unfamiliar names such as Ishita Malaviya (India's first woman surfer) or twin sisters, Lina and Sanna El Kott Herlander (Swedish skyrunners). I have never heard or known some of these sports stated here like skyruning and bouldering until i read this book.
In a way, this book is a good introduction for me towards new and unfamiliar athletes and their field of sports coming from across the globe. The diversity of the athletes' demographic profiles are quite balanced, coming from all sorts of backgrounds. There are Caucasians, Africans, Asians, indigenous, LGBT and even disabled athletes. They may have come from all walks of life but their goals and passions in sports is the same that is to win, be the best in their fields, to challenge their barriers and challenges, overcoming their insecurities and to fight for the causes they believe in. Most importantly, they had determination,courage and drive to achieve all that. This is among the main messages promoted by this book, about fearless women who were not afraid to chase after their dreams and brought some changes into the society.
However, i wish that the book would include more representation of Muslim women athletes including those wearing a hijab just like the book features about Ibtihaj Muhammad,a renowned hijabi Muslim woman fencer in the foreword section of the book. I'd be interesting to know the struggles and challenges of Muslim women athletes. The book should add in more stories of women athletes pioneers in history who fought against gender discrimination and inequality, racial injustices and women's rights like the book did with the story of Alice Milliat, a French rower who fought for women's right to join the Olympic games. I found her story compelling and interesting when overcome rejection of the IOC (International Olympic Committee) by starting up with an organisation, The Federation Sportive Feminine Internationale (FSFI) and organized a one-day sporting events just for women in Europe!
Overall, to me this book is a satisfactory read and very inspiring. The other points i liked about this book are the additional activities provided at the end of the book like the quiz and suggestions of training exercises that we can try. I loved the colourful full page portraits of those athletes and their life mottos. Very inspiring. I loved how current and updated the athlete profiles are by also including a number of the women athletes from the recent 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan like Sunisa Lee and Simone Billes.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for giving me an opportunity to read the e-ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.