Wisconsin, 1955: In a world where girls and women are taught to be quiet, the dragons inside them are about to be set free – and nothing will ever be the same again . . .

When hundreds of thousands of ordinary women sprout wings, scales and talons and take to the skies in a blaze of fire and fury, eight-year-old Alex Green is one of those left behind.

But why did Alex’s adored aunt Marla transform when Alex’s mother did not? And why does her mother insist that her cousin Beatrice is her sister? Alex doesn’t know, and no one will answer her questions. Such feminine, embarrassing things are not discussed! Best forgotten, everyone says.

But Alex won’t forget. Nor does she want to.

Alex is desperate for answers and, as she grows into a fiercely independent teenager, she must face the consequences of the Mass Dragoning: a society closing in on itself; a mother more protective than ever; the upsetting insistence that Marla never even existed; and watching her beloved Beatrice becoming dangerously obsessed with the forbidden . . .

The first adult novel by the Newbery Medal-winning Kelly Barnhill is a sweeping magnetic feminist tale set in 1950s America which exposes a world that wants to keep girls and women small – and examines what happens when they rise up.