There are more bad girls in history than we can count: murderesses, drunkards, torturers, batterers, fences, slatterns, liars, layabouts, and total louts, as well as wicked mothers, grandmothers, and stepmothers. The list is endless, even though females are supposedly the gentler sex.
Often, though, a tough girl, an outspoken girl—an active, smart, forward-looking girl—is mistaken for a bad one. A strong leader is considered a wrong leader when that leader is female.
In this book we are taking a look back through history at all manner of famous female felons. We’re looking at the baddest of the bad, as well as those who may have been just misunderstood. The crimes in question happened hundreds, even thousands, of years ago—and some of them may have never happened at all. Our bad girls are a mixed bag. Some committed criminal acts, some morally wrong acts. Some acts are, perhaps, less criminal than justifiable, brave, or even committed in self-defense. We cannot compare badness by counting bodies. After all, do three hundred Protestants burned at the stake by Queen Mary outweigh the two that Lizzie Borden was accused (though acquitted) of killing? Nor can we compare badness by measuring crimes—Pearl Hart’s stagecoach robbery might seem tame in comparison to Salome’s hand in a great prophet’s execution. Each bad girl can only be judged standing on her own.
Everyone is entitled to her own opinion, and you will see ours. We certainly don’t always agree with each other, and we don’t expect you to agree with us either. Every crime—no matter how heinous—comes with its own set of circumstances, aggravating and mitigating, which can tip the scales of guilt. And views change. The line between right and wrong, criminal and hero, good girl and bad, is sometimes very thin. Though some acts—and some girls—will always be bad through and through.
Copyright © 2015 by Jane Yolen (Author); Heidi E. Y. Stemple (Author); Rebecca Guay (Illustrator). All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
