Reviewed with Kerry Acker's Nina Simone .Gr. 9-12. These two biographies from the Women in the Arts series address both the personal and the professional lives of their subjects with mixed results. Both books follow the women chronologically from childhood to death, with a few photographs and well-integrated quotes from the artists, their peers, and historians and critics, who offer insight into the extraordinary impact of each woman's work. The treatments of the subjects' personal lives are uneven and less successful. In Virginia Woolf, Mills gracefully mentions Woolf's close relationships with individuals of both genders, but he speculates that childhood molestation may have left an impact on her sexual relationship with her husband, which, without offering deeper context, seems out of place and poorly handled in a book of this length for this age group. Nina Simone has a more straightforward tone, but it, too, includes unnecessary references to casual love affairs. Despite the problems, however, both books are solid introductions to their fascinating subjects, and the lively quotes give a strong sense of the complicated women behind the facts. Back matter includes a chronology, bibliography, and suggestions for further reading.

Each book opens with a pivotal moment in a female artist's life and then steps back to tell its subject's story chronologically. Numerous photos enliven the text. Scattered sidebars--e.g., on the civil rights movement or modernism in literature--add historical and artistic context. List of works, reading list, timeline, websites. Bib., ind.