Review of How Women Won the Vote, by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, illustrated by Ziyue Chen

Children's Nonfiction Review, History 0

How Women Won the Vote

Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, and Their Big Idea

by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
illustrated by Ziyue Chen

Harper, 2020. 80 pages.
Review written July 13, 2020, from a library book

This nonfiction story of women winning the vote is in large format like a picture book, but packed with facts, so it’s suitable for upper elementary school readers. The story is simplified, focusing on Alice Paul and Lucy Burns and beginning when they met in London in 1909. There’s a timeline in the back that highlights key events in the battle for women’s rights that happened before that last push.

There are pictures on every spread, but in many cases black-and-white photographs from the time are included. There’s a wonderful large photo filling two pages in the middle of the book and showing the women’s march in Washington, DC, the day before Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration.

The parade covers a lot of space in the middle of the book, but we also get coverage of the arrests, imprisonments, hunger strikes, and force feedings the women went through.

The main text of the book ends with the first federal election where women voted, which happened on November 2, 1920. There is an Afterword telling about more work to be done, including a picture of the 2017 Women’s March.

The author and illustrator do an excellent job of boiling the story down to pertinent information. I’ve read several thicker books about women getting the vote, and I think this one presented the most information with the most clarity.

scbartoletti.com
ziyuechen.com
harpercollinschildrens.com

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but 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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Review of The Enigma Girls, by Candace Fleming

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

The Enigma Girls

How Ten Teenagers Broke Ciphers, Kept Secrets, and Helped Win World War II

by Candace Fleming

Scholastic Focus, 2024. 371 pages.
Review written April 29, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

We’ve all heard stories about Alan Turing breaking the Enigma code in World War II, right? But did you know that literally thousands of girls under the age of 21 were also involved in monitoring enemy communications during World War II?

In this book, the title tells us that we’re tracking ten of those teenage girls, but honestly my one quibble with the book was that I couldn’t keep them straight at all. She was still introducing new characters toward the end of the book. But what made the book amazing despite that was the picture it gave of code breaking and intelligence gathering as the war progressed and what a large operation it grew to be, and how important. And taking the perspective of teenage girls who worked in this field brings home how many ordinary people were caught up in the effort.

The book progresses chronologically. It sounds like early on, they’d figured out how Enigma worked. Every day the settings changed, so every day they’d work on breaking the code. Once the code was broken, the cryptographers moved on to something else, and they had machines where girls would type in the messages with the new settings, and decoded messages would come out.

Then later in the war, they used giant computers that were programmed by connecting and disconnecting actual wires. In another department they’d figure out the settings, then they had the girls set up and run the machine. Another department translated messages from German and Italian. Another department indexed the messages on 3×5 cards to be able to understand the messages better. Other girls were hired to check radio frequencies and listen for messages and transcribe what they heard. According to a chart, by the end of the war, 2,237 men and 6,758 women worked at Bletchley Park, and most of those women were under 21 years old.

This book makes all of that fascinating. I liked the short chapters with lots of photographs. Yes, it was hard to keep track of so many characters, but it did give the idea that many young women were working there, doing many different jobs. And they worked in total secrecy, unable to tell their family and friends what important war work they were doing. I was impressed that the Germans never knew that their codes had been broken, and the valuable intelligence gathered definitely helped win the war. I now very much want to visit the Bletchley Park Museum some day.

This book is written for kids ages 8 through 12, and I think older kids (and adults like me) will be intrigued by this story of ordinary young women using their talents to win a war.

candacefleming.com
scholastic.com/ScholasticFocus

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Review of The First Dinosaur, by Ian Lendler

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

The First Dinosaur

How Science Solved the Greatest Mystery on Earth

by Ian Lendler

Margaret K. McElderry Books (Simon & Schuster), 2019. 220 pages.
Review written May 29, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

The First Dinosaur told all about the discovery and study of dinosaurs – how scientists finally figured out that giant creatures like nothing they’d ever seen before even existed. I had no idea the large number of people and long sequence of discoveries it took.

The main part of the book begins in 1676 in Oxfordshire, England, when a man named Dr. Plot discovered a large fossilized bone.

Humans have been wondering over fossils for thousands of years, but the reason this book starts with this particular fossil is because of what Dr. Plot did next.

He examined it closely. He measured and described it in detail (weight, size, composition). He even illustrated it . . . and then he recorded all this information in a book.

Plot may not have understood fossils, but because of this record we are able to look back and identify what it truly was – the thighbone of a megalosaur.

Plot had created the first scientific illustration and description of a dinosaur bone.

He didn’t come up with this idea on his own. It was one of the fundamental techniques of a new method of thinking that was spreading all over Europe at the time. Its name was Science, and it was the key to unraveling the mystery of “the formed stones.”

The book continues from there, talking about how fossil collections became popular, and eventually museums. Then people began to look more closely at these fossils they discovered. But through it all, a big obstacle was the idea that creatures might have lived long ago that are not alive on earth today.

There were many colorful figures involved in the new science of geology and eventually in paleontology. I like the story of William Buckland looking after a hyena to discover that they tore apart bones exactly the way that bones in a cave were torn apart – and their poo is shaped the same way as some strange rocks in the same cave.

I was surprised how many people it took to finally realize these bones belonged to a species not identified before, and to give them the name dinosaurs — and that was as recent as 1842.

The book finishes up by showing how dinosaurs captured the popular imagination with the Crystal Palace Exhibition and giant dinosaur replicas created by Waterhouse Hawkins.

This fascinating book gives a window into how science works and how sometimes visionaries have to think beyond what they’ve been taught. It also gives credit to those who changed their minds when the evidence showed them they were wrong.

simonandschuster.com/kids

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but 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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Review of The 1619 Project, created by Nikole Hannah-Jones

Current Issues, History, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

The 1619 Project

A New Origin Story

created by Nikole Hannah-Jones
edited by Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman, and Jake Silverstein
read by a full cast

One World/Ballantine, 2021. 18 hours, 57 minutes.
Review written 2/4/24 from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I have intended to read this book since the day it came out. Putting it in my eaudiobook queue was the key to it finally happening.

And it was so much more than I expected. Instead of one continuous book of history, this is a collection that includes eighteen essays about the significance of slavery to every part of American life combined with thirty-six poems and works of fiction highlighting key moments in our history.

This audiobook is the work of multiple authors and multiple narrators, all coming together in one epic tale.

Because of the multiple authors, the book turned out to be a little repetitive, but I learned a lot as I listened, and repetition probably helped me to retain what I heard. 1619 is the date that the first slave ship came to Virginia. This book talks about how slavery shaped our nation from the beginning, and continues to affect us from Reconstruction to the present. The essays, stories and poems help the reader understand that’s not at all a far-fetched claim.

I can see why white supremacists would want to erase this work of history with its conclusions. My own eyes were opened to historical events I was never taught about in school.

You don’t have to agree with everything you’ll find here, but surely this powerful voice should be heard. Surely this side of our joint history, too, should be illuminated. This book isn’t about silencing white voices. But it is about acknowledging the impact of Black people who were brought to our shores against their will and became uniquely American.

1619 Project Website

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Review of Harlem Grown, by Tony Hillery, illustrated by Jessie Hartland

Children's Nonfiction Review, History 0

Harlem Grown

How One Big Idea Transformed a Neighborhood

by Tony Hillery
illustrated by Jessie Hartland

Paula Wiseman Books (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers), 2020. 36 pages.
Review written October 7, 2020, from a library book

Harlem Grown is a simple picture book about a community farm in the center of Harlem. It’s a true story, and written by the creator of the farm. However, the picture book text focuses on a young girl who attended the elementary school across the street from the vacant lot where the kids got to start the farm.

Nevaeh called it the haunted garden. It was cluttered with wrecked couches, old TVs, broken bottles, and empty cans.

The picture book takes us through the process of cleaning up the lot, and then the kids in the school being shown how to put seedlings into the ground. We’re even told that the first planting didn’t do well, so the sponsor, Mr. Tony, built raised beds for the plants.

The kids took their green beans and carrots and cucumbers home to their families for dinner.

A note at the back, with a photograph, explains that the neighborhood where the first Harlem Grown farm was created was also a neighborhood with no stores where you could purchase healthy food. Now there are twelve urban farms across Harlem that grow thousands of pounds of food, given back to the community free of charge. So they provide food for the community as well as giving the children a chance to tend living things.

I realized that many of these students growing up in the concrete jungle didn’t know where a tomato came from until they were introduced to Harlem Grown’s farms. Now, they happily eat fresh vegetables because they’re proud to have grown them themselves.

So besides being a nice picture book story, it’s also an inspirational true story of kids helping to make the world a better place.

harlemgrown.org
simonandschuster.com/kids

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Review of Our Subway Baby, by Peter Mercurio, illustrated by Leo Espinosa

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Our Subway Baby

The True Story of How One Baby Found His Home

by Peter Mercurio
illustrated by Leo Espinosa

Dial Books for Young Readers, 2020. 36 pages.
Review written October 7, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

This true picture book story makes me a little teary. It tells about how the author’s partner found a baby in a subway in 2002. The book is addressed to the child, and is a sweet story without being cloying.

It was a cool August night in New York, and Danny was riding the subway home. On his way out of the station, he saw something tucked away in the corner. At first it looked like a doll. But it wasn’t.

It was you.

You were only a few hours old, wrapped up in a sweatshirt. Danny brushed your cheek. You wiggled your arms and legs.

For a moment time stopped. But then Danny jumped to action. He called the police. And then he called me.

The story tells how the two of them fell for the baby instantly and worried about him. With the help of a friendly judge, despite difficulties at that time for two dads to adopt, Danny and Peter got to adopt the subway baby.

The book shows their worries about so suddenly becoming parents, but how the baby captivated them, and how the new family of aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. helped them get everything they needed.

The Author’s Note at the back has photos and tells us that in 2012, it was Kevin’s idea to ask the same judge who facilitated his adoption to perform his dads’ marriage.

Just a lovely and sweet story, simply told. I like the way the text doesn’t make a big deal of two dads adopting but focuses on the love between the three of them that made a family. The pictures of the baby are adorably cute, too!

penguin.com/kids

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Review of My Selma, by Willie Mae Brown

Children's Nonfiction Review, History 0

My Selma

True Stories of a Southern Childhood at the Height of the Civil Rights Movement

by Willie Mae Brown

Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers, 2023. 230 pages.
Review written July 31, 2023, from my own copy sent by the publisher

In My Selma, debut author Willie Mae Brown tells stories from her childhood, where she lived with her big family in Selma, Alabama. She was a child at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, so she gives us stories of what it was like to find out about those events from a child’s perspective.

The stories are a little on the rambling side, and I’m not quite sure about how they’re organized – they don’t seem to be chronological. But that does give them the authentic feel of childhood memories. Some of them are stories about blatant racism – especially when her brother and sister were jailed for a week after being part of a peaceful protest. Others are just stories of being a kid in a big, loving family – like the year she wanted a baby doll for Christmas and then got so excited about her new bike, she didn’t open all the presents.

The book isn’t long, and it pulls you into these stories of a child who was witness to some events and people that shook the world.

As the author says in the Preface:

I write these stories of a Selma that I knew and loved. My own Selma. A Selma that brought me joy, troubled me, and baptized me into racial injustice and into the race for justice. I write these stories through the voices of people who lived at the time when I was growing up in Selma. We lived together, schooled together, played together, churched together, and fought together for the same rights as our white brethren who denied us the freedoms we were born with….

I write about Selma because our lives have historical precedence in shaping the future. I write so that you may hear, see, smell, and feel the injustice of ignorance but also the sweetness of everyday life, illuminated in my words.

And yes, you’ll find things both serious and sweet in these pages, all maintaining a child’s perspective.

Williemaebrown.com
Mackids.com

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Review of Impossible Escape, by Steve Sheinkin

Audiobooks, History, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

Version 1.0.0
Impossible Escape

A True Story of Survival and Heroism in Nazi Europe

by Steve Sheinkin
read by Rob Shapiro

Listening Library, 2023. 5 hours, 45 minutes.
Review written March 25, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2023 CYBILS Award Winner, High School Nonfiction
2024 Sidney Taylor Book Award Silver Medal, Young Adult

Impossible Escape tells the story of Slovakian teen Rudi Vrba, who in 1942 tried to escape Slovakia in order to avoid being “resettled” by the Nazis. That escape started out fine, but ultimately did not succeed, and he got pulled into the Nazi Concentration Camp network.

When reading this book, I knew he was going to escape because of the title, but the tension kept building as I wondered when it would happen. The odds against him mount as he gets sent to more and more secure camps, but the escape happens with two hours left in the audiobook. And yes, it’s certainly legitimate to call the escape impossible.

His story is so full of human details, I thought the author must have interviewed him. But realistically, we’re getting past the time when that is possible, and the Author’s Note revealed that the author instead researched in a library of Rudi’s papers. (Rudi ended up becoming a professor.) The story is gripping, and even though I have read many books about the Holocaust, the horrible barbarity he endured and witnessed is something my heart doesn’t want to believe is even possible.

Why was his story important? Because he was the first eyewitness to escape Auschwitz and testify to the systematic mass murder taking place there. At the time of his escape, Hitler was beginning to convince the Hungarian government to deport the Jews of Hungary — and Rudi’s testimony helped sway world opinion so that the remaining Jews of Hungary were saved — including his childhood friend, whose story we get alongside Rudi’s, as she did manage to leave Slovakia and escape capture.

This audiobook had me riveted — the kind of story it’s hard to stop listening until the book is done. I also wish it weren’t necessary to keep reminding the world how much evil can come from dehumanizing your enemies. May this never be repeated, and if and when it is, may heroes like Rudolph Vrba arise and escape with the truth.

stevesheinkin.com

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Review of We Are Still Here! by Traci Sorell, illustrated by Frané Lessac

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

We Are Still Here!

Native American Truths Everyone Should Know

by Traci Sorell
illustrated by Frané Lessac

Charlesbridge, 2021. 40 pages.
Review written June 30, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

This picture book has the frame of kids from a Native Nations Community School making presentations on Indigenous Peoples’ Day. It does throw a lot of information at the reader, but the information is presented in digestible amounts.

There’s a theme throughout the book, straight from the title. The beginning spread sets up the book:

Our Native Nations have always been here. We are Indigenous to the continent now called North America. Our leaders are sovereign and have power to make rules. Our ways of life changed when white people arrived from Europe….

Most people do not know what happened to Native Nations and our citizens after treaty making stopped in 1871.

Despite the continued occupation of our homelands,
regular attacks on our sovereignty,
and being mostly forgotten in US culture,
Native Nations all say,
“We are still here!”

The spreads in the rest of the book tell about aspects of Native Nations’ history after 1871 and all end with the refrain, “We are still here!”

The topics covered include Assimilation, Allotment, Indian New Deal, Termination, Relocation, Tribal Activism, Self-determination, Indian Child Welfare and Education, Religious Freedom, Economic Development, Language Revival, and Sovereign Resurgence. These are presented simply, in ways an upper elementary school child can understand. That’s a good thing, because I had a lot to learn, too.

The text tells about ways treaties were broken, but also about ways that Native people made sure their voices were heard.

There’s lots of informative back matter. The author is absolutely right and this history isn’t taught in school – I had some inklings because of my own reading, but I still have a lot to learn. And this beautiful book will help kids get a better start.

tracisorell.com
franelessac.com

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*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books!

Review of The Tree of Life, written by Elisa Boxer, illustrated by Alianna Rozentsveig

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 1

The Tree of Life

How a Holocaust Sapling Inspired the World

written by Elisa Boxer
illustrated by Alianna Rozentsveig

Rocky Pond Books, 2024. 36 pages.
Review written March 20, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

Here’s a nonfiction picture book about the Holocaust that manages to focus on the inspiring rather than the terrible.

The story is told simply, with more detail in the author’s note in the back. From the start, the focus of the pictures is on the tree. Here’s how the book begins:

In a season of sadness, hope came to the children as a tiny tree, tucked inside a boot.

It was winter, World War Two, and the boot belonged to a prisoner in a ghetto called Terezin.

There were children in the ghetto too. The prisoner saw they were scared and separated from their families.

He also saw a woman secretly teaching the children to read, write, and celebrate Jewish holidays.
Tu BiShvat was coming — The New Year of the Trees.
The teacher, Irma Lauscher, risked her life when she asked the prisoner to sneak in a sapling.
the prisoner risked his life when he said yes.

They planted the tree, and the children of the community gave drops from their water rations to keep it watered. Even when there were fewer and fewer children to care for it.

Even though the children who left were taken to a place that was even worse, that tree kept growing and kept hope alive. By the end of the war, the tree was taller than the children.

That tree, planted during the war in Terezin, grew to be sixty feet tall and stood as a symbol of hope across the generations. The teacher who planted it sent seeds from the tree all over the world.

We learn that the tree finally died in 2007 after a flood destroyed its roots. But the book ends with schoolchildren in New York City in 2021 planting a sapling born from the original tree, standing as one of over 600 trees throughout the world, grown from the original maple.

Like all picture books, this is one you’ll appreciate more by looking at it yourself, and that won’t take long. A sensitive and lovely story of hope rooted in the history of a terrible time.

ElisaBoxer.com
AliannaRozentsveig.com
penguin.com/kids

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