Review | Trailblazer: Lily Parr, the Unstoppable Star of Women's Football by Elizabeth Dale and Carolina Coroa

This lively picture book biography follows Lily Parr’s journey from kicking a ball down the street with her siblings to becoming a star striker for the Dick, Kerr Ladies, one of the most celebrated teams in early women’s football. It doesn’t shy away from the challenges she faced, from casual mockery to entrenched prejudice, but balances that with moments of wit and warmth. “Fact bubbles” highlight key milestones in women’s football history, while speech bubbles add light bursts of humour, making Parr’s story approachable for younger readers and newcomers to the sport’s history.

Carolina Coroa’s illustrations bring a bold, graphic-novel style to the book. The muted colour palette might seem subdued at first glance, but it also feels like a deliberate nod to the era’s seriousness and the weight of its historical backdrop.

That said, the book passes too quickly over one of the sport’s most pivotal moments: the Football Association’s 1921 ban on women’s matches. It notes the period’s sexist arguments that football was “too much for a woman’s body,” but skips over a deeper motive, the threat women’s growing popularity posed to the men’s league. A brief dive into that tension could have added sharper historical context and made Parr’s perseverance even more impactful.

Some wording also misses the mark. Saying “not even a man had a more powerful shot than hers” tries to emphasise Parr’s skill, but risks reinforcing male ability as the baseline. Likewise, retelling the famous penalty-kick anecdote where Parr supposedly broke a male goalkeeper’s arm, loses nuance by glossing over the detail that he still saved the shot. That doesn’t diminish her legend; it makes it more human.

The book’s closing image is its most powerful: Parr and her teammates silhouetted behind today’s women footballers, a striking visual of the game’s progress and the debt owed to its pioneers.

As an introduction to Lily Parr and to the early history of women’s football, this biography is engaging, spirited, and proud. With just a bit more historical depth, it could have been definitive, but it still more than earns its place as a tribute to one of the game’s greats.

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