I enjoyed this book: although the writing seems aimed at young adults, the thirteen women profiled here are fascinating. I grew up in Minnesota, yet knew almost nothing about these women, which is a pity. This would be a great book for a high school history course. ( )

Brief biographies of a dozen or so women who were important in the history of Minnesota, beginning back in the 1840’s when it was just a frontier territory to more ‘modern’ post-WWII history. I was vaguely familiar with about half the women in the book, the others I’d never heard of, so certainly a lot of knowledge was gleaned and absorbed, but I did find this book a bit dry; it felt like recitations of the women’s accomplishments and didn’t really allow you to get to ‘know’ the women. This is one reason I prefer historical fiction to historical ‘non-fiction’ books—more speculation is allowed into people’s motivations, more insight into their character rather than just ‘this is what they did when.’ This is the second book in this series I’ve read, and I didn’t enjoy this one as much as the previous one, which was about Washington state. ( )