The Woman Who Rode a Shark by Ailsa Ross

A copy of this was provided free of charge from the publisher in return for an honest review.

If you were to ask most people they could probably name several famous men who had achieved something significant in their lives, but if you were to ask the same people if they could think of any women who had achieved similar things then they would be hard pushed to name one or two in the majority of cases. Women are just a capable as men in achieving things that they set out to do, it is just we tend to hear about the men.

In this book there are the profiles of fifty women who have forged their own paths, climbed trees and mountains, flown and sailed solo around the world, crossed deserts, became spies and as the title says there is the profile of one woman, Kimi Werner, who rode a Great White shark. Sadly most of the women mentioned in here are not household names, I had only heard of a handful of them, but they should be. So if you want to know what Manon Ossevoor, Diana Nyad and Wang Zhenyi had achieved then you need to read this book.

Each of the women featured in here has accomplished something amazing or unique and this book is a celebration of all their lives. It is really nicely put together too, with single page profiles that give enough detail of the subject and suggestions of other women to discover and find out about. They are accompanied by bold art for each one to that complement This really nicely put together book should be read by all children, to prove that following your dreams can lead to many things.