Radium Girls

"Compelling, inspiring, and radiant." Foreword

"Excels in showing the camaraderie of the 'Ghost Girls.'" Publishers Weekly

"Will keep readers engaged in these women's stories from the first page." ALA

It’s 1918 in Orange, New Jersey, and everyone knows the “Ghost Girls.”

The proud holders of well-paying jobs at the local watch factory, these working-class young women gain their nickname from the fine dusting of glowing, radioactive powder that clings to their clothes after every shift painting watch dials. The soft, greenish glow even stains their lips and tongues, which they use to point the fine brushes used in their work. It’s perfectly harmless...or so claims the watch manufacturer.

When teeth start falling out, followed by jawbones, the dial painters become the unprepared vanguard on the frontlines of the burgeoning workers’ rights movement. Desperate for compensation and acknowledgement from the company that has doomed them, the Ghost Girls must fight, not just for their own lives but the future of every woman to follow them.

A stunning graphic novel retelling of the shocking and inspiring true story.

“Radium Girls seduced us with its inventive aesthetic, its narrative mastery from start to finish and the strength of its purpose. It's moving, it's poetic and political, it's Cy." Séverine Vidal, president of the jury, BD Lectors.com Prize

"Of particular interest to upper level readers as a landmark case in the history of workplace safety legislation, but what shines here most brightly are the voices and characters of the women involved." School Library Journal

"Compelling, inspiring, and radiant." -- FOREWORD

"Excels in showing the camaraderie of the 'Ghost Girls.'" -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

"Will keep readers engaged in these women's stories from the first page." -- ALA

It's 1918 in Orange, New Jersey, and everyone knows the "Ghost Girls."

The proud holders of well-paying jobs at the local watch factory, these working-class young women gain their nickname from the fine dusting of glowing, radioactive powder that clings to their clothes after every shift painting watch dials. The soft, greenish glow even stains their lips and tongues, which they use to point the fine brushes used in their work. It's perfectly harmless . . . or so claims the watch manufacturer.

When teeth start falling out, followed by jawbones, the dial painters become the unprepared vanguard on the frontlines of the burgeoning workers' rights movement. Desperate for compensation and acknowledgement from the company that has doomed them, the Ghost Girls must fight, not just for their own lives but the future of every woman to follow them.

A stunning graphic novel retelling of the shocking and inspiring true story.

Cyrielle Evrard, publishing under the nom de plume Cy, was born in 1990. She studied at the École de Condé Paris, where she did a higher cycle of illustration after a BTS Visual Communication. Her previous work includes The True Sex of Real Life, volumes 1 and 2.