Seven brave women are profiled in No Girls Allowed, a slim graphic novel written by Susan Hughes and illustrated by Willow Dawson (both of whom are based in Toronto), including the Egyptian pharaoh, Hatshepsut; Alfhild, a ninth-century Scandinavian princess; and Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, a soldier in the American Civil War. All have one thing in common: they lived (and some died) disguised as men. A few did it for love, others for family, and some out of personal ambition – such as James Barry, an early 19th-century Scottish girl who reinvented herself as a man so she could attend medical school and become a doctor.

These brief biographies are told through a comic book format that employs Dawson’s black-and-white illustrations. She used ink and acrylic on cardboard to create stark images of Hughes’ heroines. The panels are full of detail – maps, letters, and several full-page illustrations are added to the mix, making for a varied read. And most of the stories are told through dialogue that is accessible to a third grader and entertaining to those much older.

Readers not only learn the biographies of these women, they get a lot of historical context, too. We encounter the complex royal-family line in ancient Egypt, the slave trade, anti-Semitism in 18th-century France, and British colonies in South Africa. As a bonus at the back of the book, Hughes suggests kid-friendly biographies and picture books about her ladies.