During Women's History month I'm learning about three amazing women each day. This month-long challenge is easier than it sounds with the help of these four collections of bite-size biographies. 
Sandra Lawrence's Anthology of Amazing Women (Little Bee Books, $17.99) introduces younger readers to notable women, ranging from Egypt's longest-reigning female pharaoh, Hatshepsut (born 1507 BCE), to contemporary singer Beyonce and girls' education advocate (and Nobel Laureate) Malala Yousafzai. Similarly broad ranging and a good choice for teens and/or comics fans is Brazen (First Second, $17.99), written and illustrated by Penelope Bagieu, with vignettes covering subjects from Angolan queen Nzinga to astronaut Mae Jemison. 
Covering some racier subjects with saltier language, Hannah Jewell collects "100 unknown women who built cities, sparked revolutions and massively crushed it" in her collection She Caused a Riot (Sourcebooks, $22.99). Jewell encourages us to devote more of our mental real estate to amazing women who "should be so well-known that their names would make terrible passwords." Though Jewell includes women from ancient history to the present, she captures them in the zeitgeist using pop-culture and slang-heavy storytelling (she includes a glossary, "for old people.")
All the Women in My Family Sing (Nothing But the Truth, $16.95) steps back from history books to look instead at the varieties of women's experiences seen through their own personal stories. The collection of short pieces gives intimate voice to women of color as they consider citizenship, race, motherhood, the workplace, aging and more.
The brief biographies in each book are easily consumed on a morning bus ride or, as Jewell notes, just as easily seated on the toilet as in an armchair beside a roaring fire. She hopes the stories, in addition to inspiring further reading, might inspire each of us to "Get up, go outside, scream at the sky in a righteous fury, and then join a community organization or two." --Kristianne Huntsberger, partnership marketing manager at Shelf Awareness
