Review of Orris and Timble: The Beginning, by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Carmen Mok

Animal Characters, Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

Orris and Timble

The Beginning

by Kate DiCamillo
illustrated by Carmen Mok

Candlewick, 2024. 80 pages.
Review written May 8, 2024, from a library book
Starred Review

This is the start of a new beginning chapter book series by Kate DiCamillo, and it’s tender and sweet and brilliant.

Orris the rat lives in an old abandoned barn. We see his treasures: A red velvet slipper, a yellow marble, and a sardine can. The sardine can is for “Imperial Sardines” and has the picture of a fish wearing a crown and saying, “Make the good and noble choice!!”

That phrase haunts Orris when he discovers a young owl with his claws caught in a mousetrap nailed to the floor, crying for help. Owls eat rats, so at first Orris leaves the owl struggling and goes back to his own home. But in spite of himself, he wants to make the good and noble choice.

I like the way when Orris decides to save the owl, whose name is Timble, Orris is obviously frustrated with himself and says, “For the love of Pete!”

And this book tells, in simple but evocative language, how Orris rescues Timble, and how this becomes the beginning of their friendship.

This book is lovely – beautifully illustrated and with a warmly relatable story as we see Orris make the good and noble choice despite great fear – and then reap the consequences.

katedicamillo.com
carmenmokstudio.com
candlewick.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/orris_and_timble.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.

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.

What did you think of this book?

Review of A Place to Belong, by Cynthia Kadohata

Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Historical 0

A Place to Belong

by Cynthia Kadohata
read by Jennifer Ikeda

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2019. 9 hours on 7 discs.
Review written January 31, 2020, from a library audiobook

A Place to Belong opens at the end of World War II, with Hanako, her little brother Akira, and her parents on a ship going to Japan. Her family was imprisoned in camps during the war because of their Japanese heritage, and after the war, her parents were pressured to give up their American citizenship. Now they are headed to a village outside of Hiroshima, where Papa’s parents still live. On the way there, Hanako sees people and places devastated beyond her wildest imaginings.

Adjusting to Japan is difficult. And she is torn by the people – even children – begging for food. If she gives them rice, what if there’s not enough to feed her own brother? In school, she’s different from the other girls. Can she ever get them to accept her? Woven throughout the stories are memories from their family’s time in the camps and her resultant mixed feelings about America.

This was a part of the story of Japanese Americans that I hadn’t heard before, so I was fascinated by the details. I have to admit that the book felt long and didn’t have a driving plot – they were simply trying to survive, taking each day as it came. The love coming from Hanako’s grandparents toward the grandchildren they just met was a continuing warm bright spot, and did make me glad I stuck it out and listened to the entire book.

cynthiakadohata.com

Buy from Amazon.com

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.

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.

What did you think of this book?

*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 Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann

Audiobooks, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

Version 1.0.0
Killers of the Flower Moon

The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

by David Grann
read by Ann Marie Lee, Will Patton, and Danny Campbell

Random House Audio, 2017. 9 hours, 5 minutes.
Review written May 10, 2024, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

Once again I’m late to the party, but I’m enjoying listening to books that are hugely popular at Fairfax County Library. Obviously, this one got a second wind from the movie, but both the adult version and the young adult version still have long holds lists.

This book is a true crime historical murder mystery. Or rather killing spree mystery. There are three parts to this book, and the first section is about an Osage woman named Molly Burkhart in the 1920s. Like many of her Osage neighbors, Molly was incredibly wealthy because their tribe had retained rights to the oil under their land — the land the nation was given because the white folks thought it was worthless.

But there was an oil boom in the 20s, and enrolled members of the Osage nation received monthly checks that were enormous in those years. However, the government had a hard time believing Indians were competent to handle that much money, and Molly, like many others, was appointed a guardian who had to give permission for her to spend any of her own money.

But that’s not the worst of it. Beginning with her sister, one by one the people in Molly’s family began to die. Her sister from a bullet through her head. Another apparently poisoned. Another sister and her husband had their entire house blown up. And Molly’s family weren’t the only Osage people being killed. Dozens, maybe hundreds of people were murdered, with many of those murders covered up.

And that brings us to the second part of the book. At the time, there wasn’t a reliable police force. They could and did hire private eyes, but those weren’t always reliable either. But that was the time that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was being formed, and the next part of the book features Tom White, a federal agent trying to get to the bottom of the murders and bring the perpetrators to justice.

It turned out that finding out who was responsible was much easier than bringing anyone to justice. The white man responsible for killing Molly’s family had plenty of connections with people in power, and had killed so many that everyone was afraid to testify against him.

The third part of the book is about the author doing some investigation almost a hundred years later and finding about even more deaths in the Osage nation. All of these murders were about greed — people wanting a piece of that enormous oil wealth, and not valuing Indian life, and taking advantage of prejudice against the Osage people.

This book tells a tremendously sad story of great injustice and harm. As well as highlighting how badly our government treated people of the Osage nation. But the story is dramatic and riveting. May the light it sheds on that darkness help us all to change our ways.

davidgrann.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/killers_of_the_flower_moon.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.

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.

What did you think of this book?

Review of The Only Woman in the Photo, by Kathleen Krull, illustrated by Alexandra Bye

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

The Only Woman in the Photo

Frances Perkins & Her New Deal for America

by Kathleen Krull
illustrated by Alexandra Bye

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2020. 44 pages.
Starred Review
Review written February 3, 2020, from a library book

Did you know that a woman named Frances Perkins was instrumental in designing the New Deal? I didn’t. She was also the first female cabinet member, and it was twenty more years before there was another. This picture book biography tells her story and how she was in the right place at the right time to make a big impact on people’s lives.

The author tells us that young Frances was too shy to speak when she was a child, even to ask for a library book. But she was encouraged by her grandmother, and when she saw injustices around her, she joined the new field of social work and spoke up to help people.

She spoke up for people in poverty and for worker safety. She witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire where 146 people died. That made her all the more determined to be a voice for women being exploited.

Frances first worked in New York State, helping pass laws there to make workplaces safer. And that was where Franklin D. Roosevelt, the governor, appointed Frances the state’s industrial commissioner shortly before the stock market crash and the start of the Great Depression.

So when FDR was elected president, he asked Frances to be his secretary of labor. I like the double-page spread about her decision:

So Frances decided she’d accept the job – if FDR allowed her to do it her way. She had been thinking up ideas for years. Now she wrote all her requests on slips of paper, a to-do list for helping the most vulnerable.

At their meeting, she held them up, and she watched the president’s eyes to make sure he understood what she was planning. The scope of her list was breathtaking. It was nothing less than a restructuring of American society.

Their talk lasted one hour – until he finally said, “I’ll back you.”

The next spread shows Frances cleaning out the desk in her new office in the Department of Labor – the drawers were crawling with cockroaches!

The book goes on to explain – in picture book terms that are easy to understand – how hard Frances worked to help American workers. Her dream come true happened in 1935 when FDR signed the Social Security Act into law.

One interesting thing about the book that I find rather refreshing: It doesn’t talk about her marriage at all, except the note at the back where we learn that she was the sole support of her husband and daughter, both of whom had significant health problems. Since books about great men don’t always mention their families, there’s something I like about this picture book glossing over that. Though I did assume she was single and that’s how she accomplished so much, so part of me which that had gotten some attention in the main part of the book. But it’s a picture book biography of a woman who was far ahead of her time, and it does succeed in presenting the significant details of her life and making the reader want to know more.

KathleenKrull.com
AlexandraBye.com

Buy from Amazon.com

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.

What did you think of this book?

*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 A Study in Drowning, by Ava Reid

Audiobooks, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

A Study in Drowning

by Ava Reid
read by Saskia Maarleveld

HarperTeen, 2023. 10 hours, 32 minutes.
Review written May 13, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

This is another eaudiobook I checked out because it was very popular at Fairfax County Library — and one of the best results of that curiosity. I loved the heroine, Effy Sayre, a first-year university student in another world somewhat like ours in the 1950s or so. Effy was put into the school of Architecture even though her scores were high enough for the school of Literature, and literature is where her heart is — because no woman has ever been admitted to the school of Literature.

But when a chance comes from the estate of her favorite author Emrys Myrddin to redesign his family’s home, Effy jumps at the chance, and to her surprise, wins the competition. Effy loves Myrddin’s work so much, she can quote from all of his books, but especially his masterpiece, Angharad. The book is about a girl who loves the Fairy King and is taken as his wife, but who gradually realizes his cruelty — and is his undoing.

The book means a lot to Effy because all her life, she’s been plagued by visions of the Fairy King. Her mother never believed her and took her to a doctor who prescribed pink pills to make the visions go away. But Effy clung to the story of a girl who also saw the Fairy King and ended up triumphing over him.

But when she arrives to the far south coast of the country, things are not at all as she expected. The house she’s supposed to remodel is falling apart with decay, and the nearby sea is finding its way in. She’s greeted by Myrddin’s son, who has some very strange moments, and she never sees the author’s wife. And she begins seeing the Fairy King even when she’s taken her pills.

It turns out there’s a literature student also working at Myrddin’s estate, trying to access his letters and papers to write a scholarly paper about him. He’s pompous and stuffy. But when Effy learns he’s not even sure Emrys Myrddin actually wrote the Angharad, that seems a bridge too far.

But… things happen. This book continues on with a bit of a mystery and a big climactic scene full of danger. Ava Reid did an amazing job with the atmosphere of this book. The house is so decayed, so remote, so sinister, so close to the angry sea, and you get the feeling that the Fairy King might be real. And if so, he’s dangerous.

I do feel like I should mention when a novel for Teens has a sex scene. This has one, with a little bit of description. I did think the romance was beautifully done, with kindness and gentleness toward someone who’d formerly been abused.

Now, there were what felt to me like some big coincidences that allowed them to find crucial documents. And I can’t really believe that papers could have managed to stay intact in a metal box underwater. But those are quibbles. Overall, this wonderful book had me enthralled throughout and wanting to find more rote tasks to do so I could keep on listening. A truly wonderful book about a girl whose salvation has always been books — learning to stand up for herself in real life, despite all those who want to use her.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/study_in_drowning.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.

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.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Ruth Objects, by Doreen Rappaport, illustrated by Eric Velasquez

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review 0

Ruth Objects

The Life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

written by Doreen Rappaport
illustrated by Eric Velasquez

Disney Hyperion, 2020. 44 pages.
Review written February 12, 2020, from a library book

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a wonderful subject for a picture book biography, because her life story is an inspiring one of triumphing in spite of obstacles. She’s a trailblazer, clearing a path for other women to follow in her steps.

I enjoyed the book I Dissent a little more, since that was the picture book biography that first told me about Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life. But this one fills a niche of being for a slightly older age group (good for upper elementary, I think). It gives more details of her life and her journey through law school, teaching, in courts, and to the Supreme Court. I liked that when she was teaching at Columbia Law School, she filed lawsuits for women workers there to get the same benefits as men. This book featured a lot of her cases that were about gender.

Doreen Rappaport has a series of picture book biographies. They all stand out for their large size with big, beautiful paintings of the subject (and always their face on the cover) and for the way she highlights quotes from the subject on every page. Those big paintings make this book memorable.

“Yes, women are here to stay. And when I’m sometimes asked when will there be enough women on the Court, and I respond when there are nine, people are shocked. But the Supreme Court has had nine men for ever so long, and nobody’s ever raised a question about that.”

doreenrappaport.com
EricVelasquez.com
DisneyBooks.com

Buy from Amazon.com

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.

What did you think of this book?

*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.

Sonderling Sunday – Eeyore Has a Birthday

Sonderling Sunday 0

It’s time for Sonderling Sunday! That time of the week when I play with language by looking at the German translation of children’s books.

Today I’m taking on the wonderful classic Winnie-the-Pooh, which I’m afraid isn’t quite as charming as Pu der Bär, but the translator, Harry Rowohlt, makes a good effort. Of course, all the nouns are Already Capitalized in German, so they can’t use capitalization With Great Meaning.

Last time I covered Pu der Bär was *gasp* 2016! We covered the chapter where Pooh meets the Heffalump. This means that today we’re on Chapter 6, “In Which Eeyore Has a Birthday and Gets Two Presents,” which when translated is Kapitel 6, In welchem I-Ah Geburtstag hat und zwei Geschenke bekommt.

I like including the first sentence. This one’s actually shorter in German!
“Eeyore, the old grey Donkey, stood by the side of the stream, and looked at himself in the water.”
= I-Ah, der alte graue Esel, stand am Bach und betrachtete sich im Wasser.

“Pathetic”
= Ein Bild des Jammers
(“A picture of misery”)

Shorter again in German:
“There was a crackling noise in the bracken behind him”
= Es raschelte im Farn hinter ihm
(“It rustled in the ferns behind him”)

“gloomily” = düster

“Which I doubt.” = Was ich bezweifle.

“Gaiety” = Frohsinn

“Here we go round the mulberry bush”
= Ringel Ringel Rosen. Darf ich bitten, mein Fräulein.

“riddle” = Rätsel

Sorry, just not the same:
“a Bear of Very Little Brain”
= ein Bär von sehr geringem Verstand
(“a bear of very low understanding”)

Okay, this had to have been a Great Big Challenge to translate:

“Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,
A fly can’t bird, but a bird can fly.
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie.”

The German version:
Fragen, Fragen, immer nur Fragen.
Es kann der Käfer den Specht nicht ertragen.
Gib mir ein Rätsel auf; ich werde sagen:
»Da musst du jemand anders fragen.«

It rhymes!

(Put through Google translate:
“Questions, questions, always just questions.
The beetle cannot bear the woodpecker.
Give me a riddle; I would say:
»You’ll have to ask someone else.«”)

“verse” = Strophe

zweite Strophe:

“Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,
A fish can’t whistle and neither can I.
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie.”

Auf Deutsch:
Fragen, Fragen, immer nur Fragen.
Ein Fisch kann nicht pfeifen und ich kann nicht klagen.
Gib mir ein Rätsel auf; ich werde sagen:
»Da musst du jemand anders fragen.«

(The new line through Google translate is:
“A fish can’t whistle and I can’t complain.”)

And finally, the third stanza:

“Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,
Why does a chicken, I don’t know why.
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie.”

Auf Deutsch:
Fragen, Fragen, immer nur Fragen.
Unsichtbar wird der Honig im Magen.
Gib mir ein Rätsel auf; ich werde sagen:
»Da musst du jemand anders fragen.«

(“Invisible becomes the honey in the stomach.”)

Hey, it rhymes!

“Many happy returns of the day”
= Herzliche Glückwünsche zum Geburstag

“proper” = angemessenes

We’ve done this before, but have to include:
“Piglet” = Ferkel

“knocker” = Türklopfer

“kindly” = liebenswürdig

“Very Sad Condition” = sehr traurig Zustand

“wants to cheer him up” = zur Aufheiterung wünscht

And a good sentence to know:
“Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon.”
= Niemand kann mit einem Ballon unaufgeheitert bleiben.
(“Noone can with a balloon uncheered remain.”)

“trotted” = trabte

“jar of honey” = Honigtopf

“tip of his nose” = seiner Nasenspitze

“trickled” = tröpfelte

Another phrase we Need to Know:
“Time for a little something.”
= Zeit für eine Kleinigkeit.

“as he took his last lick of the inside of the jar”
= als er den Topf ein letztes Mal ausschleckte

“useful pot” = nützlichen Topf

“paw” = Pfote

“wobbly” = wacklig

“admiringly” = bewundernd

“carelessly” = leichthin (“lightly”)

“rabbit hole” = Kaninchenloch

“blown up” = in die Luft geflogen (“in the air flown”)

“BANG!” = PENG!

“bang” = Knall

“with great difficulty” = unter großen Schweirigkeiten

“I burst the balloon!”
= ich habe den Ballon kaputtgemacht!

“snuffling” = schniefend

“And it’s for putting things in.”
= Und man kann Sachen hineintun.

“So it does!” = Es klappt ja! (“It works!”)

“It goes in!” = Es passt hinein! (“It fits in!”)

“as happy as could be” = so glücklich, wie man nur sein kann

“box of paints” = Malkasten

And the last sentence of the chapter:
“‘Yes, I remember,’ said Christopher Robin.
»Ja, jetzt weiß ich es wieder«, sagte Christopher Robin.

So, that took a while, but I like doing a complete chapter. May your next week be so glücklich, wie man nur sein kann!

Review of The Bug Girl, by Sophia Spencer with Margaret McNamara, illustrated by Kerascoët

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

The Bug Girl

(A True Story)

by the Bug Girl herself, Sophia Spencer,
with Margaret McNamara
illustrated by Kerascoët

Schwartz & Wade Books, 2020, 40 pages.
Starred Review
Review written 02/20/2020 from a library book

This picture book is written in the voice of the author, who is a fourth-grade student – and does a marvelous job of telling other kids that it’s okay to love bugs.

Sophia begins with her first encounter with a bug – when she was two years old, in a butterfly conservatory, one butterfly landed on her and decided to stay the whole time she walked around the conservatory.

After that, Sophia became obsessed with bugs. She got books and videos about them and learned all she could about them. She collected bugs, and her mom let her keep them out on the porch.

In Kindergarten, other kids thought Sophia’s obsession with bugs was cool. But that changed when she got to first grade. Now they started teasing her and calling her weird. There’s a very sad page in that section:

Then I brought a grasshopper to school. I thought the kids would be so amazed by the grasshopper that they’d want to know all about it. But they didn’t. A bunch of kids crowded around me and made fun of me.

“Sophia’s being weird again,” one of them said.

“Ew! Gross!” said another. “Get rid of it!”

Then they knocked that beautiful grasshopper off my shoulder and stomped on it till it was dead.

Sophia became afraid to talk about the bugs she loved. She continued to be teased and excluded at school and called weird. She thought she’d have to give up her passion.

But Sophia’s mother was sad to see her so unhappy.

She wrote an email to a group of entomologists asking for one of them to be my “bug pal.” She wanted me to hear from an expert that it was not weird or strange to love bugs and insects. “Maybe somebody will write back,” said my mom.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Or at least call.”

We thought those scientists would be too busy to respond.

But an email came from an entomologist named Morgan Jackson who asked to put the letter online.

He asked other bug scientists – all around the world – to let me know if they had any advice for a girl who loves bugs.

That set off a flood of responses, with a hashtag: #BugsR4Girls

I couldn’t believe how many people around the world loved bugs as much as I did. And how many of them were grown-up women!

Some were scientists who wrote about the work they do in their labs. Others shared videos of themselves with bugs on their arms and sent pictures of themselves hunting bugs in the wild.

The response also set off more publicity of its own – Sophia got interviewed by newspaper reporters and even appeared on television.

Now, as a fourth-grader, Sophia has many other interests, but she still loves bugs.

This picture book presents all this in a child-friendly way with bright pictures and simple text. At the back are six pages of cool bug facts from Sophia.

margaretmcnamara.net
rhcbooks.com

Buy from Amazon.com

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.

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.

What did you think of this book?

*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 Bird Girl, written by Jill Esbaum, illustrated by Rebecca Gibbon

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Bird Girl

Gene Stratton-Porter Shares Her Love of Nature with the World

written by Jill Esbaum
illustrated by Rebecca Gibbon

Calkins Creek, 2024. 44 pages.
Review written April 30, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

Bird Girl is a picture book biography of Gene Stratton-Porter. Many years ago, I read A Girl of the Limberlost, and I expected the story of her life as an author. Instead, the book told about her fascination with studying and caring for birds and her groundbreaking work as a nature photographer who photographed birds in their natural settings.

And then I remembered that I learned from her novels how important it is for farmers to leave trees on the edges of their fields – because then birds will help them eliminate pests. And that was only a bit of the nature lore in her novels.

The book is bright and colorful and uses entertaining anecdotes to tell the story. When she was a girl, she hid a hawk’s droppings from her farmer father so he wouldn’t know where the nest was and kill it. Later, when he did shoot down a hawk, she took care of it and befriended it until its wing healed.

As an adult, Gene Stratton-Porter had a house with a conservatory that had windows with special hatches so birds could come and go, and she kept food for birds throughout her house.

She began photographing birds because the illustrations a magazine wanted to use for her stories were drawings of stuffed birds in unnatural positions. She learned to photograph and develop her own film – and then she went out into the nearby Limberlost swamp to take the pictures.

She fights through spongy muck and tangled undergrowth – rattlesnake territory – to reach the hollow tree where a vulture nests. She goes back time and again to capture the world’s first photo series of a growing vulture chick.

She ended up with a vast knowledge of wildlife acquired through patient observation that began when she was a child. And her story shows kids the power of a quirky obsession.

jillesbaum.com
rebeccagibbon.com

Buy from Amazon.com

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

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.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Mother Jones and Her Army of Mill Children, by Jonah Winter, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Mother Jones and Her Army of Mill Children

by Jonah Winter
illustrated by Nancy Carpenter

Schwartz & Wade Books, 2020. 36 pages.
Review written February 27, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

The topic of this picture book biography stirred me up besides telling me about someone I hadn’t known much about. Mother Jones – Mary Harris Jones – was the “grandmother of all agitators.” She spoke out strongly against oppressive labor conditions, and especially about child labor. The title and the focus of the book are about a Children’s March where she led mill children on a protest march from Philadelphia to New York City in 1903, which she called the Children’s Crusade.

The book is written in first person from Mother Jones’ perspective. Quotes from her speeches are used in a few places, and famous quotes are included on the endpapers. All caps are used in places to convey her anger at injustice.

Well, I’ve seen lots of things to get RILED UP about, but the worst thing I ever saw was in the fabric mills of Philadelphia. I saw children YOUR AGE – nine and ten years old – who worked like grown-ups, forced to stand on their feet for TEN HOURS STRAIGHT, tying threads to spinning spools, reaching their hands inside the dangerous machines that make the fabric, sometimes getting skirts caught, sometimes getting hair caught, sometimes hands or legs, working for hours and hours, never resting, breathing deadly dust – robbed of their childhoods, robbed of their dreams, and all for a measly TWO CENTS AN HOUR, while outside the birds sang and the blue sky shone.

The majority of the book is about the Children’s March. They didn’t stop at New York City, but marched on to the summer home of President Theodore Roosevelt on Long Island – where he refused to see them.

But the actions of Mother Jones ended up resulting in child labor laws that are still in effect today.

I liked that the artist used a dark palette for this book, with sobering pictures of the kids – as well as happier pictures, such as when the kids tried out the rides on Coney Island.

This book gives an important story, and I’m glad I learned about it. It’s told in a way that kids can appreciate a woman – and children – who made a big difference.

nancycarpenter.website
rhcbooks.com

Buy from Amazon.com

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.

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.

What did you think of this book?

*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.