Great book.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me read an advance copy of this book in exchange for my review.

Using words to change the world...what a brilliant idea. Potentially a book that works with the schools in the persuasive language aspects of lessons at all key stages. Well laid out, bright and colourful with eye-catching illustrations, this reference book is aimed at young people who are at school but want to make a difference.

This is a guide to activism and in the introduction it sets out to show how inequality 'stems from people being denied a voice' and then how to 'reclaim and remedy oppressive (cruel or unfair) language'. Throughout there are images of a clapperboard indicating what action can be taken. There's also a star chart to monitor each chapter read and action taken. Some of these are simple and good things all children - or adults - should do, like donating books to organisations that send books overseas.

The chapters cover an array of subject matter, such as lack of education, colonial language and the history of certain words, bias (the best chapter in the book!) journalism, sexism, ableism, social media and online activism, storytelling, music, art and poetry, plus politics. There is also a quiz and games.

However, there are some inconsistencies. Asquith talks about slurs and offensive words that have been applied by others to marginalised groups, and then in the next chapter labels people as 'transphobes' and 'hardcore prescriptivists' - words applied to others, people who may take offence at these labels. Similarly, the author argues against using prefixes and suffixes such as 'actress', 'waitress' and 'man bun' - and then uses the prefix 'cis' as in 'cisgender men' for example. Gender ideology is a dominant theme and there is far too much detail on this topic in comparison to other issues.

Overall this is a modern, bright and bouncy book about language, but I'm not sure it is an activists' guide.

Louder by Kate Asquith is a book about activism and how young adults (teenagers) can find and use their voices and creativity to help make a change in today's society. This book looks at the range of different activism methods which are available to use whilst explaining in great detail the method, the strengths and limitations to offer a fully informative book.

I liked the idea of this book, which to me, was helping the readers find their voices and provide them with a self-help guide to activism. What activism is, why it is important and how to become an activist. Although the book does touch on these topics, it could have gone into much more detail about how to be an Activist and provided much more information and tips. I also loved the book's layout, which was creative but well-formatted and not over the top.

However, when reading this book a few issues kept coming back to me. Firstly, I am really puzzled about what this book's target market is. At times the content seemed too in-depth and detailed for younger children and teenagers but at other times it seemed too young for older teenagers. There is a potential it may be suitable for teenagers in the middle, but from the teenagers I see at schools, I think very few of them would want to read this book, considering that the majority of the younger generation do not want to read at all in this increasing digitalized world. Furthermore, this book at times goes over the top with political correctness, which on the one hand many younger individuals would not understand all of it at this level of detail.

Therefore, I rate this book 2 stars making it an alright/good book. This is because the topic of the book is very good and provides some really good information, but at times the book goes into too much detail in areas which may be more suitable for another book and in my opinion it either confuses the target market or tries to write for a target market which is far too broad. I would like to say a big thank you to NetGalley and in particular Collins Reference publishers for inviting me to read this book, I am greatly appreciative of this opportunity.