Meet “Rejected Princesses”

Someday your prince will come. It’s a familiar story, a song so deeply embedded, you may have just played it in your head. We’ve known Disney princesses for a long time as well as the expectations they set. However, if you think this is an article admonishing princess culture, it’s not. It’s about making more women in history get the same acclaim and reverence for doing far greater things than losing shoes, eating bad apples, touching stabby things, falling asleep, and doing housework. There are far better stories to tell.

The website and book: Rejected Princesses: Tales of History’s Boldest Heroines, Hellions, and Heretics are the product of Jason Porath, a former DreamWorks animator. As he heard more and more stories of courageous women throughout history who would never get their own animated story, he thought they should get some attention. In fact, the tagline for the Rejected Princesses is “Women too Awesome, Awful, or Offbeat for Kids’ Movies.”

Rejected Princesses uniquely highlights inspiring women who fought, disobeyed, rallied and went to war over their beliefs and sometimes for just being women. The stories are told via short synopses of graphical images and stories. The collection is amazing, the artwork warmly familiar and beautiful, as well as thoughtfully symbolic.

Take a look, but we’ve warned you – set some time aside – you can’t read just one.

Who is your favorite under-represented woman in history? Share your thoughts in comments below.