Not without its flaws, but a solid picture-book biography of an unforgettable hero for queer rights activism.
Edie Windsor stands up for LGBTQ rights.
A young Edie is attracted to women, but only upon moving to New York in 1951 is she able to be her authentic self. Though Edie and Thea fall in love and get engaged, they know their marriage would be illegal. Edie and Thea are white and Jewish and have both faced unfairness based on their religion and sexuality, which fuels their activism. Decades later, Edie and Thea go to Canada to get married legally. When Thea passes away, Edie is left with a broken heart and a large inheritance bill—spouses can legally inherit property without paying taxes, but the U.S. government never recognized Edie and Thea’s marriage. Edie sues the U.S. government, hoping to defeat the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as being between a man and a woman. Her case reaches the Supreme Court, which, in 2013, determines that DOMA is unconstitutional after all. The story breezes past Edie’s childhood, focusing on her relationship with Thea and the Supreme Court case. Despite some pacing issues, the importance of Edie’s story is conveyed effectively. Expository blocks of text feel at odds with colorful pop art illustrations that might appeal to a younger set. Detailed backmatter offers context and interest, some of which may have benefited from inclusion in the story.
Not without its flaws, but a solid picture-book biography of an unforgettable hero for queer rights activism. (timeline, additional information and historical context, author’s note, selected bibliography) (Picture-book biography. 9-11)Pub Date: May 20, 2025
ISBN: 9781643795829
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Well-informed and much-idealized if not entirely simplistic pictures of both the great man and his bustling estate.
Stepping carefully around the controversies, a former curator at Monticello reconstructs the septuagenarian Jefferson’s active daily round.
Jefferson’s fixed routine begins with a faithful recording of temperature and weather at first rising and ends with a final period of solitary reading by candlelight in his unusual alcove bed. In between, the author describes in often fussy detail the range of his interests and enterprises. There’s not only his “polygraph” and other beloved gadgets, but also meals, family members, visitors, and excursions to Monticello’s diverse gardens, workshops and outbuildings. Like the dialogue, which mixes inventions with historical utterances, the generous suite of visuals includes photos of furnishings and artifacts as well as stodgy full-page tableaux and vignettes painted by Elliott. The “slaves” or “enslaved” workers (the author uses the terms interchangeably) that Jefferson encounters through the day are all historical and named—but Sally Hemings and her Jeffersonian offspring are conspicuously absent (aside from a brief name check buried in the closing timeline). Jefferson adroitly sidesteps a pointed question from his grandson, who accompanies him on his rounds, by pleading his age: “The work of ending slavery is for the young.”
Well-informed and much-idealized if not entirely simplistic pictures of both the great man and his bustling estate. (sidebars, endnotes, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0541-0
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
The author of the justly renowned What the Neighbors Thought series digs a little deeper with these equally engaging single...
This brisk and pithy series kickoff highlights Sacagawea’s unique contributions to the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Joining her “clueless” French-Canadian husband and so becoming “part of one of the smartest hiring decisions in history,” 16-year-old Sacagawea not only served as translator and diplomat along the way, but proved an expert forager, cool-headed when disaster threatened, and a dedicated morale booster during four gloomy months in winter quarters. She also cast a vote for the location of those quarters, which the author points to as a significant precedent in the history of women’s suffrage. Krull closes with a look at her subject’s less-well-documented later life and the cogent observation that not all Native Americans regard her in a positive light. In Collins’ color paintings, she poses gracefully in fringed buckskins, and her calm, intelligent features shine on nearly every page. The subjects of the three co-published profiles, though depicted by different illustrators, look similarly smart and animated—and behave that way too. Having met her future husband on a “date,” Dolley Madison (illustrated by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher) goes on to be a “rock star,” for instance. Long before she becomes a Supreme Court justice with a “ginormous” work load, Sonia Sotomayor (illustrated by Angela Dominguez) is first met giving her little brother a noogie. Though Krull’s gift for artfully compressed narrative results in a misleading implication that the battle of New Orleans won the War of 1812 for the United States, and there is no mention of Forever… in her portrait of “the most banned author in America,” Judy Blume (illustrated by David Leonard), young readers will come away properly inspired by the examples of these admirable rule-breakers.
The author of the justly renowned What the Neighbors Thought series digs a little deeper with these equally engaging single volumes. (source and reading lists, indexes) (Biography. 9-11)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8027-3799-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
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