‘When Women Were Dragons’ imagines a fiery response to female suppression
by Erin Douglass
Jun 16, 2022
3 minutes
Newbery award winner Kelly Barnhill’s first novel for adults, “When Women Were Dragons,” opens with a brief but fiery blast. Tucked between title page and epigraph, the dedication reads, “For Christine Blasey Ford, whose testimony triggered this narrative.”
In an interview with Minnesota Public Radio, Barnhill shares that the book’s kernel came to her while listening to the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings with her middle-school daughter. “I was so mad,” she says. She decided then and there to write a
You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.
Start your free 30 days