ALL RISE

A praise song for the U.S. Supreme Court’s first Black woman justice.

Using “She rose” or “Ketanji rose” as refrains, Weatherford retraces in pithy evangelical bursts the general course of her subject’s early life and career—from being elected “mayor” of her junior high school to shrugging off slights to her name and race, levitating past a guidance counselor’s doubts about her getting into Harvard (where she ended up editing the law journal as a graduate student), and, as a federal judge, coming to the attention of Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden on her way to the judicial top. Leaving further character analysis and biographical detail to others, the author then just quotes Jackson that she is “standing on the shoulders of my own role models” and closes by positioning her as “a role model for children everywhere.” Evans follows suit in scenes of the buoyantly smiling justice at various ages and with her childhood and adult families by adding portraits of Shirley Chisholm, Maya Angelou, and other Black women who overcame obstacles. A letter from the author to her granddaughter (“and all of our daughters”) closes out the book. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A distinctly purposeful profile.