Beginning with Ann Lee, mother of the Shaker movement, and ending with Doris Haddock, fighting for campaign finance reform, Harness (The Revolutionary John Adams, p. 1693, etc.) sketches in words and pictures 20 women who “dared to try to change the world.” She includes those one would hope are familiar to children—Eleanor Roosevelt, Sojourner Truth—but also includes several who are less well-known, like Mother Jones of the labor movement and Margaret Sanger. She also chronicles women who have almost vanished from historical consciousness: Frances Wright, who wrote a book about America in 1821 and fought for the education of slaves and against the legal fettering of women; or Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, an Army surgeon during the Civil War who is the only woman ever awarded the Medal of Honor (although Congress did try to take it away). Each woman’s story is told in two facing pages, with a portrait, a quote, her dates, and some illustrations of her life’s work. This makes the format accessible and attractive, but does mean that information has to be shoehorned in, and there is some awkwardness of style and phrasing. Harness also includes timelines of the abolition, women’s, labor, and civil-rights movements, which give a quick overview of where these women’s lives fit into context. She closes with extremely brief suggestions of resources, places to visit, and a ten-word glossary. Useful for school reports and for expanding the knowledge base of American women’s history. (index, bibliographies, Web Resources) (Biography. 8-12)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-525-47035-2
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2002
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share. (Memoir/poetry. 8-12)
A multiaward–winning author recalls her childhood and the joy of becoming a writer.
Writing in free verse, Woodson starts with her 1963 birth in Ohio during the civil rights movement, when America is “a country caught / / between Black and White.” But while evoking names such as Malcolm, Martin, James, Rosa and Ruby, her story is also one of family: her father’s people in Ohio and her mother’s people in South Carolina. Moving south to live with her maternal grandmother, she is in a world of sweet peas and collards, getting her hair straightened and avoiding segregated stores with her grandmother. As the writer inside slowly grows, she listens to family stories and fills her days and evenings as a Jehovah’s Witness, activities that continue after a move to Brooklyn to reunite with her mother. The gift of a composition notebook, the experience of reading John Steptoe’s Stevie and Langston Hughes’ poetry, and seeing letters turn into words and words into thoughts all reinforce her conviction that “[W]ords are my brilliance.” Woodson cherishes her memories and shares them with a graceful lyricism; her lovingly wrought vignettes of country and city streets will linger long after the page is turned.
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share. (Memoir/poetry. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-25251-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
A celebration of progressive Judaism and an inclusive primer on Jews making a difference in the world.
This wide-ranging collection of short biographies highlights 36 Jewish figures from around the globe and across centuries.
Explicitly pushing back against homogenous depictions of Jewish people, the authors demonstrate the ethnic, racial, and gender diversity of Jews. Each spread includes a brief biography paired with a stylized portrait reminiscent of those in Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo’s Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls (2016). A pull quote or sidebar accompanies each subject; sidebars include “Highlighting Jewish Paralympic Athletes,” “Jewish Stringed Music,” and “Ethiopian Jews in Israel.” Kleinrock and Pritchard’s roster of subjects makes a compelling case for the vastness and variety of Jewish experience—from a contemporary Ethiopian American teen to a 16th-century Portuguese philanthropist—while still allowing them to acknowledge better-known figures. The entry on Raquel Montoya-Lewis, an associate justice of the Washington Supreme Court and an enrolled member of the Pueblo Isleta Indian tribe, discusses her mission to reimagine criminal justice for Indigenous people; the sidebar name-checks Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan. The bios are organized around themes of Jewish principles such as Pikuach Nefesh (translated from the Hebrew as “to save a life”) and Adam Yachid (translated as the “unique value of every person”); each section includes an introduction to an organization that centers diverse Jewish experiences.
A celebration of progressive Judaism and an inclusive primer on Jews making a difference in the world. (resources) (Nonfiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9780063285712
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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