Category: Children’s Nonfiction Review

Some Writer!

The Story of E. B. White

by Melissa Sweet

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016. 161 pages.
Starred Review

This book is amazing. I’ve seen Melissa Sweet do picture book biographies, such as Balloons Over Broadway and illustrations as in A River of Words. But this is a full-length children’s biography with 161 pages, with illustrations or photographs or clippings or maps or mementoes or other visual aids on every spread.

I’ve read a biography of E. B. White for adults. While it did include much more detail, this book was far more entertaining. The visual material includes many quotations from E. B. White’s work, typed out on a manual typewriter.

I was particularly impressed with the map Melissa Sweet made of E. B. White’s (Andy’s) trip across the country in a Model T with his friend Cush in 1922. She painted a map of the United States on wood. There’s a zigzagging trail with numbers and little mementoes attached to the numbers. A Legend on the side explains what each memento represents. For example, number 5 is a piece of sandpaper, and the Legend reads, “Sandpapered a dance floor earning $3.00.”

As a children’s biography, this book does linger over his childhood. He spent lots of time outdoors, but was also writing at a young age, submitting pieces to St. Nicholas. A picture of the magazine and an article clipping is included.

His time at The New Yorker is covered, and his move to Maine. There are all kinds of mementoes illustrating these. One of the pages has at the top a quotation from The Letters of E. B. White:

I have discovered, rather too late in life, that there is nothing so much fun as building a boat. The best thing about building a boat is that it allows absolutely no time for writing; there isn’t a minute to spare.

Below the quotation is a page from a book describing how to build a boat, complete with diagrams. The page also shows some old tools he would have used. Across the page in the main text, we learn that Andy built his son a boat after they moved to Maine.

There’s a chapter on each of Andy’s children’s books and a chapter on The Elements of Style. The chapter on The Elements of Style surprised me. Melissa Sweet takes quotations from three award-winning children’s authors telling their favorite parts of The Elements of Style.

Here’s a paragraph from the final chapter:

His obituary in The New Yorker read, in part, “White had abundantly that most precious and least learnable of writerly gifts – the gift of inspiring affection in the reader.” Whether he was working on a poem, a cartoon caption, an essay, or a children’s book, E. B. White felt it was a writer’s obligation “to transmit, as best he can, his love of life, his appreciation for the world.” His friend and editor William Shawn said: “Even though White lived much of his life on a farm in Maine, remote from the clatter of publicity and celebrity, fame overtook him, fortunately leaving him untouched. His connections with nature were intimate and ardent. He loved his farm, his farm animals, his neighbors, his family and words.”

I can’t overstate how thoroughly and meticulously this book is crafted. Melissa Sweet follows E. B. White’s advice and wastes no words or images. The complete package is stunning.

There’s an Afterword by E. B. White’s granddaughter, but there’s also an Author’s Note. In “About the Art,” Melissa Sweet tells us:

I set out to capture two things as I began the art for this book: the sense of place in White’s writing and the small, vivid details he describes.

She achieved this goal beautifully.

melissasweet.net
hmhco.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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I Dissent

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark

by Debbie Levy
illustrations by Elizabeth Baddeley

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2016. 40 pages.
Starred Review

Here’s a picture book biography of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The story is simplified for young readers (I’d say middle to upper elementary), but strikingly told.

The introductory page uses large dramatic fonts to express not being afraid to disagree:

You could say that Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life has been . . .
one disagreement after another.

Disagreement with creaky old ideas.
With unfairness.
With inequality.
Ruth has disagreed,
disapproved,
and differed.

She has objected.
She has resisted.
She has dissented.

Disagreeable? No.
Determined? Yes.

This is how Ruth Bader Ginsburg changed her life – and ours.

Although the story is told quite simply, it’s still filled with details. We learn about her childhood in 1940 in an immigrant neighborhood, her love of reading, and family travels where they saw signs that Jews weren’t allowed.

Ruth was left-handed, but was told to use her right hand and got a D in penmanship – until she protested. I like the pages where it tells what she doesn’t do well – cooking and singing. After she got married, her family agreed that it was best for her husband to do the cooking.

But the bulk of the book covers her career as a lawyer. They speak in general terms of cases she presented before the Supreme Court, and then her appointment to the Supreme Court. There are notes at the back with more information and listing specific cases.

I didn’t know before that Justice Ginsburg wears a different lace collar over her robes when she writes a majority opinion from the one she wears when she writes a dissenting opinion.

Here’s how the author summarizes some of her dissenting opinions:

I DISSENT,
Justice Ginsburg said when the court wouldn’t help women or African Americans or immigrants who had been treated unfairly at work.

I DISSENT,
when the court rejected a law meant to protect the right of all citizens to vote, no matter their skin color.

I DISSENT,
when the court said no to schools that offered African Americans a better chance to go to college.

This is an interesting story and an inspiring story. I hope many girls and boys will read this story and think about making their own mark.

The quote on the back of the book from Ruth Bader Ginsburg sums up the book well:

Fight for the things that you care about. But do it in a way that will lead others to join you.

debbielevybooks.com
simonandschuster.com/kids

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/i_dissent.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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