HER EPIC ADVENTURE

Short tributes to active, courageous women who accomplished extraordinary feats and firsts.

Though Bessie Coleman, Amelia Earhart, and Sylvia Earle have well-earned entries, most of the achievers here will be less familiar even to inveterate role-model seekers. Also, except for Charlotte Small, a half-White/half-Nehiyaw (Cree) explorer who traveled over three times farther than the roughly contemporary Lewis and Clark, the lineup is a relatively modern one. It’s racially diverse enough to give nods to African American anthropologist and novelist Zora Neale Hurston for her studies of Vodou and Kalpana Chawla, the first astronaut born in India, and it’s otherwise inclusive enough to feature paraplegic climber/skier Karen Darke and to hail both 64-year-old lesbian Diana Nyad’s Cuba-to–Key West swim and teenager Laura Dekker’s solo sail around the world. (The latter three women are White.) Mention of the Aymara women in Bolivia who call themselves the Cholitas Climbers and a group entry for the Black Mambas, a South African anti-poaching squad, expand the titular total, as does a brief interview at the end with intercontinental motorcyclist Lois Pryce, who’s White. Johnston’s profiles focus more on exploits than personal details (though there is a reference to Nyad’s “girlfriend”), and if Perera’s painted portraits are more representational than realistic, they do pose their smiling subjects in outdoorsy garb and settings. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10.3-by-18.8-inch double-page spreads viewed at 80% of actual size.)

An unusually diverse gallery also valuable for calling attention to some less-renowned deeds and doers.