Dr. Margaret Robbins's Recs: Books and Media with Empowered Female Protagonists

This is the review I posted on Goodreads (4/4.5 Stars): This amazing, lyrical science fiction YA novel tells the story of a brilliant, sensitive, and creative teenage girl named Luisa, who has just been accepted into a high profile internship program as a result of her computer coding skills. But Luisa’s plans change abruptly when a mysterious virus erupts that affects thousands of people, including her best friend and her father. Luisa, her brother Ben, and their friends Kamal and Phoebe go on a cross-country journey to try to find a cure and to save the world, before it’s too late. Luisa gets hints in the form of mysterious poems, and she has to learn to trust faith and intuition that go beyond science and logic. Along the way, she better understands the positive side of her condition, which is seeing waves of color when her emotions run high. This book has depth, suspense, intriguing characters, and an engaging plot that moves along like a gripping action film. Highly recommended fo...

(A slightly different version was originally published on my other blog, comicsandyalit.blogspot.com, which includes reviews from my Goodreads selection).      Since my colleagues know that I am interested in comics and graphic novels, I frequently get asked to recommend graphica/comic books for classroom use and for adolescents to read for interest. Recently, I have been thinking in particular about comic volumes and graphic novels that have not yet been canonized the way such books as Art Spiegelman’s  The Complete Maus  and Marjane Satrapi’s  The Complete Persepolis  have. These important graphic novels paved the way for the exploration of comics and graphic novels in classroom settings. However, I am learning about so many other options out there! At various conferences I have attended, as well as courses I have taught. I have been reminded of how important it is for educators to learn about high interest readings for adolescents. By doing s...