Written by Manahil Masood
Kindness might not seem like a historical method, but for Lydia Sanders, it’s the foundation of everything she writes. As the creator of Hysterical Herstories, a children’s book series that tells the stories of historical women through rhyming verse, she has found a way to bring the past to life for a new generation of readers.
“I’ve now written about thirty Herstories,” she says. “They all start out as poems because they’re meant to be fun to read aloud with children. Everyone should get to learn about history.”
The series is bright and engaging, all whilst remaining educational. Each book tells the story of a woman whose life helped shape the world, from Ada Lovelace and Marie Curie to Rosa Parks, Coco Chanel, and Boudicca. Lydia is drawn not to perfection, but to the real people behind the fame.
“I’ve always been interested in ordinary women who led extraordinary lives,” she says. “We often put women from history on pedestals, as if they were flawless heroines. But history isn’t black and white. I wanted to show that women who were complex, who made mistakes, who faced struggles, still changed the world through their hard work.” She adds, “When I talk to children in schools, I always say we learn about men like Henry VIII, and he wasn’t exactly morally perfect, but we still study him because of his impact. I wanted to do the same for women, so that every child can see themselves in one of those stories.”
Her first book was about Marie Curie, chosen not only because of her global recognition, but because of her humble beginnings. “Everyone knows about her Nobel Prizes,” Lydia explains, “but not many people know about her backstory, the financial difficulties, the move to a new country to study as a woman. That’s what I found inspiring.”
Indeed, Lydia’s own background has helped her think about history from a broader perspective. Growing up in the Roman city of Lincoln gave her an early sense of connection to the past, and studying French, Spanish, and Russian at Durham University expanded that curiosity into something more tangibly global.
“When I was in Paris for my year abroad, I went to see Marie Curie’s grave in the Panthéon,” she says. “I remember standing there thinking, this woman changed history. And I felt this connection, being there to study, in a new place, not knowing anyone or the culture. I wanted to understand her life on a deeper level.”
Her time abroad, she says, has made her more aware of the ways immersing oneself in new cultures shapes empathy. “Studying languages taught me to listen,” Lydia tells me. “It’s made me want to include women from all over the world because when we open ourselves to different walks of life, we become more understanding and kinder to each other. I believe we could solve a lot of the world’s problems just by being kinder.”
Researching these diverse Herstories meant working with an enormous range of sources, from ancient Roman texts to modern archives. Lydia moved between them, adapting her process to each subject. “Writing about Boudicca was hard,” she admits. “There’s so little written about her, I had to rely on Roman historians like Tacitus, and of course his perspective was shaped by the attitudes of the time. He described her as unnatural, which tells you more about him than her. Then someone like Rosa Parks, she only died in 2005, so there’s so much more material, even photographs. I loved that contrast, going from translated ancient texts to primary sources I could actually see.”
Her enthusiasm for discovery is clear when she talks about her research. “When the British Museum excavated near King’s Cross, they found a torc buried alongside a woman’s body from Roman Britain, a very tall woman, clearly important. Some thought it might be Boudicca. I was just blown away. Those moments make history feel alive.”
Writing this real history for a young audience brings a unique set of challenges. Lydia is open about how carefully she handles sensitive subjects. “There’s a lot of trial and error,” she says. “With someone like Chanel and her connections to Nazism, I wanted to include the important points but not upset children. And in the Boudicca story, her daughters were raped but I use the word attacked instead. It’s about being honest without being graphic.”
Her approach is to trust her readers’ intelligence while guiding their understanding. “For Marie Curie and Ada Lovelace, I kept the proper scientific terms but added a glossary at the back,” she explains. Children are curious, and if you respect them enough to give them the language, they’ll often rise to it. She tests her work with her own family. “I have fourteen cousins,” she says. “I’m the second oldest, so I’ve had plenty of little critics.”
That connection with young readers goes beyond family. Her TEDx Talk on representation made waves for its message that history should be inclusive. “When children see themselves represented, they will grow up more open, more tolerant, more extraordinary, and most importantly, they will grow up kind,” she said then; a sentiment that underpins everything she writes.
Her audience’s reactions can be both moving and amusing. “I still remember the first letter I ever got,” she says. “It was from a little girl who’d drawn a cat and written, ‘Boys suck, women rule!’ I thought, that’s not quite what I meant, but how sweet that she felt so empowered. I’ve had emails from parents and teachers too, saying their children love the books. But the nicest thing is when boys write in. It doesn’t matter to them that the books are about women, they just see good historical stories.”
The experience of researching and writing the series has reshaped and solidified the way Lydia interacts with the past. “I’m constantly, sometimes even subconsciously, looking for a feminist angle,” she admits. “In pub quizzes, in films, it’s like a radar I can’t switch off. But that’s a good thing. It’s made me more aware of how many stories we still don’t tell.”
Today, she works in HR, where she continues to apply her belief in representation and inclusion. “I like to bring women up in the workplace,” she says. In fact, encouraging others there seems an extension of what she does through her books.
Before we finish, I ask the cliché of who she would most like to invite to a dinner: “I don’t know if I’d want to meet someone like Chanel or Boudicca,” she says. “I think they’d be terrifying, but great conversation. There’s a woman called Beatrice Shilling, a British engineer during the Second World War. Or Catherine Littlefield Greene. Ordinary people who had fascinating lives doing jobs I know nothing about. I’d love to talk to them. And of course, I’d like to ask Emily Davison if she really meant to throw herself under that horse!”
As our conversation ends, Lydia reflects on the message that ties her work together, one she repeats to the children she meets at schools and talks.
“In a world where you can be anything,” she says, “be kind.”
It’s a fitting close from a writer who believes that empathy and curiosity belong at the heart of how we teach history. Through Hysterical Herstories, Lydia Sanders is helping the next generation see that history isn’t just about great figures of the past, it’s about the humanity that connects us all.
Featured Image Credit: Lydia Sanders
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