Month: March 2025

Intergenerational fun

~ Janet Dawson ~ Leave a comment

Kwesi and Nana Ruby Learn to Swim by Kobina Commeh, illustrated by Bárbara Quintino (Barefoot Books, 32 pages, grades K-3). Kwesi wants to swim with his friends, but he’s afraid of the water. When Nana Ruby comes for a visit, he confides his fears to her. She tells him that when she moved to the U.S. from Ghana, many pools were closed to Black people, and she never learned to swim either. They make a deal to learn together, and Nana Ruby tells Kwesi about Mami Wati, a half-woman, half-fish creature from Ghanaian mythology, who will protect them. Their new teacher resembles Mami Wati (except for the fish tail), and she proves to be an excellent instructor. Before long, Kwesi is swimming in the lake with his friends and encouraging Nana Ruby to join them. Includes a glossary, additional information about the Akan people of Ghana, and notes from the author and illustrator about how they both learned to swim as adults.

The history of Black people historically being barred from learning to swim is woven into this story seamlessly, with the uplifting message that it’s never to late to try new things. The illustrations are beautiful, especially those in the water, and Mami Wati is spectacular. The story, from a first-time author, would have benefited from a little more editing to tighten it up a bit.

Little Big Man by Varian Johnson, illustrated by Reggie Brown (Orchard Books, 40 pages, ages 4-8). Elijah is disappointed when his father has to work the day he wanted to fly kites together, but Dad tells him, “A new baby means extra work for everyone.” Elijah’s job is to stay quiet around the baby, but he sometimes has trouble remembering. He strengthens his resolve the next day when Dad leaves for work. Their days parallel each other, as they plan, work hard, help others, and clean up after themselves. By the time Dad returns, Elijah has made a beautiful kite and convinces the whole family to play outside for the rest of the afternoon. Thanks to Orchard Books for providing this review copy; the book will be released in May.

This sweet story would make a nice sibling gift, showing various family dynamics and how both kids and adults have to work together to find a balance between work and play. There are lots of action words in a big bold font, and it’s fun to see Elijah and his dad in the illustrations as they perform similar tasks throughout their day. Having said all that, Varian Johnson is one of my favorite middle grade authors, and I hope he gets back to the genre to create more books like Twins and The Parker Inheritance.

Susan B. Anthony

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For the second week of Women’s History Month, I headed west to the Susan B. Anthony Birthplace Museum in Adams, Massachusetts, where abolitionist and suffragist Anthony was born in 1820. Guided tours are available on the weekends, but I opted to walk through on my own. There are exhibits about Anthony’s childhood, as well as her work on temperance, abolition, and most famously, women’s suffrage, which sadly was not granted until almost fifteen years after her death.

Sojourner Truth’s story gave me a glimpse of the intersection of the temperance, abolition, and women’s suffrage movements, and I got a more in-depth look at this at Anthony’s home. Her Quaker faith informed her decisions on all three of these causes. The temperance movement was connected to the women’s movement because of the belief that alcohol often led to the abuse of women and children and to financial ruin that impacted them as well. Abolition was a huge cause for Anthony, as well as for others like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, and Frederick Douglass, and the Civil War put much of the women’s movement on hold. The friendship between Anthony and Douglass is celebrated in Two Friends: Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass by Dean Robbins, and Harriet Tubman sits down with her friend Susan for tea and reminiscences in Chasing Freedom: the Life Journeys of Harriet Tubman and Susan B. Anthony Inspired by Historical Facts by Nikki Grimes.

After the Civil War, conflicts began to arise in the movements between those who prioritized suffrage for Black men, and those who advocated for women getting the right to vote. Anthony’s close friend Elizabeth Cady Stanton in particular expressed racism in her writing, but the women’s suffrage movement as a whole focused on white women’s rights. For a glimpse of how Black women were often treated by white suffragists, take a look at Ida B. Wells Marches for the Vote by Dinah Johnson.

The exhibit that surprised me the most was the one on Susan B. Anthony’s opposition to Restellism, an abortion practice performed by Ann Trow Lohman, a.k.a Madame Restell. I was not aware of the controversy surrounding this, with the modern pro-life movement claiming that Anthony opposed abortion, but the exhibit felt like it had a contemporary pro-life bias. Abortion in the 19th century was very different from procedures today, which may at least partially explain why 19th century suffragists might have opposed it (it was a much more dangerous procedure that often took away women’s agency over their own bodies). Although there’s more information in the exhibit, this summary from the museum’s website captures the essence of it: Restellism was a form of abortion, and Susan B. Anthony unequivocally opposed Restellism. I found a 2022 Smithsonian article that quotes Deborah L. Hughes, president of the National Susan B. Anthony Museum and House saying that Anthony was neither pro-choice or pro-life. Now I’m curious to travel to Rochester to see how this issue is portrayed there.

Feminism, past and present

~ Janet Dawson ~ 1 Comment

Tear This Down by Barbara Dee (Aladdin, 304 pages, grades 4-7). Freya has always liked asking lots of questions and having strong opinions, but as she’s gotten older, she’s learned to stay quiet rather than risk being made fun of. A school project leads her to the discovery that town founder Benjamin Wellstone, an outspoken abolitionist, opposed giving women the vote. Teaming up with new friend Callie, Freya embarks on a series of actions to tear down Wellstone’s statue and replace it with one of a local suffragist Octavia Padgett. After the girls sneak out of the house for some late-night statue vandalism before a big town festival, they are both grounded and forced to reconsider their tactics. Freya’s activist grandmother helps her to see that there’s room for both Benjamin and Octavia in town and leads her to come up with an idea of creating a quilt celebrating the suffragists that unites people rather than tearing them apart.

A good choice for Women’s History Month, the latest by Barbara Dee portrays an idealistic, outspoken protagonist who sometimes feels like her strong opinions need to be silenced. I always enjoy Dee’s books that tackle difficult issues with a light touch. Thanks to Aladdin Books for providing me with a free copy.

One Girl’s Vote: How Lucy Stone Helped Change the Law of the Land by Vivian Kirkfield, illustrated by Rebecca Gibbon (Calkins Creek, 40 pages, grades 2-5). From an early age, Lucy Stone felt the unfairness of the ways she and other girls were treated as inferior to boys. Her teacher called on the boys before Lucy, even though Lucy’s hand was raised first, and her father dictated family policy, including the decision that Lucy would not attend college like her brothers. Lucy was determined, though, and earned enough money to pay her tuition at Oberlin College, the first American college to accept women. But even at Oberlin, there was inequality, and Lucy fought back, organizing a secret women’s debate society and striking for equal wages to men’s for her campus jobs. After graduation, she was hired by William Lloyd Garrison to work for the New England Anti-Slavery Society. She soon became well-known as a passionate speaker, and her work evolved to include women’s rights. The work and travel was exhausting, but Lucy Stone’s voice helped pass the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, and paved the way for women to get full voting rights 27 years after her death. Includes a timeline for Lucy Stone and the fight for women’s rights and equality for all, a couple photos, fun facts, and a bibliography.

In my experience, Lucy Stone is lesser known than fellow suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, so I’m happy to see this delightful picture book that emphasizes Lucy’s early days but gives a nod to her tireless work for abolition and women’s rights. The timeline offers quite a few milestones in women’s history. I did not know that Lucy Stone was married to Elizabeth Blackwell’s brother, and that women who kept their maiden names, as Lucy did, were sometimes called Lucy Stoners.

Kids navigating two worlds

~ Janet Dawson ~ 1 Comment

The Interpreter/La Intérprete by Olivia Abtahi, illustrated by Monica Arnaldo (Kokila, 40 pages, ages 5-8). “Some kids had one job: to be a kid. Cecilia worked two.” Cecilia’s second job is the family interpreter, translating English to Spanish for her immigrant parents. This job takes her to places most kids don’t go, like the DMV, the bank, and the car mechanic. Cecilia used to have a partner, but her older brother “got promoted” by going away to college. At a parent-teacher conference, her teacher asks her how she’s doing. Cecilia starts to translate the question, then realizes it’s directed at her…and that she’s not doing great. She finally explodes, and her parents realize she’s under too much pressure. After a family meeting, they get some back-up: her brother comes home for a weekend, and her aunt offers to do some interpreting. Cecilia still loves to help her family, but now they work together to make sure she gets the time she needs to be a kid as well.

I’m so grateful for this book, which I can’t wait to share with my classes of international students, for whom I’m sure it will resonate. I love the illustrations that portray Cecilia in a business suit for her interpreter duties and use cartoon bubbles in blue for English and yellow for Spanish. There’s plenty of humor, but also good advice for kids to take breaks and get support from family members and other adults. The author and illustrator information on the back flap reveals that both of them served as kid interpreters for their own immigrant families.

Home Is a Wish by Julia Kuo (Roaring Brook Press, 32 pages, ages 4-8). A girl lives with her mother and grandmother. Sometimes, she and Mama or Amah go out, but they always come back home again. One day, though, they leave for good, and as they fly across the ocean, the girl wonders if there will ever be a place that feels like home again. The new place feels strange at first, but slowly, the family begins to go out and come back, until it starts to feel like home. There are new friends and newly familiar places, and she realizes that there are different homes for different times: “a home from before, a home for now, even a home for later.”

The immigrant experience is beautifully captured here with brief text and lovely illustrations of both home countries. The pictures and use of the word Amah suggest that the first home might be in Taiwan or China, while the later illustrations could portray Julia Kuo’s current home state of Washington, but the ambiguity makes this a more universal story. It would have been interesting to have an author’s note to learn how much, if any, of this story is based on her own childhood.

Skywalkers, buffalo hunters, and ribbon dancers: three books about Indigenous Americans

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To Walk the Sky: How Iroquois Steelworkers Helped Build Towering Cities by Patricia Morris Buckley, illustrated by E. B. Lewis (Heartdrum, 40 pages, grades 1-5). For more than a century, members of the Mohawk tribe from Canada’s Caughnawaga reserve have worked construction as “skywalkers,” balancing on beams high above the ground. Many of them were working on a bridge across the St. Lawrence River near Quebec City that collapsed in August, 1907, killing 75, including 33 from Caughnawaga. Beginning in the 1920’s, Mohawk skywalkers from New York and Canada traveled to New York City to build skyscrapers, including the World Trade Center. After the towers’ destruction on September 11, 2001, skywalkers helped dismantle broken beams and later were an important part of building One World Trade Center. Today, skywalkers continue their work across North America, including Native women who have entered the profession. Includes an author’s note about her family’s connection to the story, additional information about the Quebec bridge collapse and the Kahnawà:ke reserve (formerly Caughnawaga), a glossary, and a list of some of the buildings constructed by skywalkers.

Kids will be fascinated by the story of these skilled, courageous workers who have helped build some of the most famous structures in North America. The Mohawks originally worked as unskilled laborers in exchange for some of their reserve land, but soon proved their fearless skill as skywalkers and have continued the tradition for over a century. Look for YouTube clips to supplement the book with heart-pounding visuals.

The Gift of the Great Buffalo by Carole Lindstrom, illustrated by Aly McKnight (Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 40 pages, grades K-3). Rose is excited to be at the semi-annual Métis buffalo hunt. Pa is a captain for the first time, in command of ten other hunters. After several days of scouting, no buffalo have been seen, and Rose hears Pa saying they’re scarce because of the settlers and their iron horse. Rose is sure she could find the herd, but Pa says she’s too young to help. But Rose is determined, and with the help of a wolf skin, she finds the buffalo, and the men hunt what they need for their people. At the end of the day, she tells Pa she wishes he would take her with him on the next hunt. “I just might,” he replies. Includes an author’s note relating how she enjoyed the Laura Ingalls Wilder books but felt alienated by their portrayal of Native Americans as savages, and how that led her to write this story about the same time and place; also includes additional information about the buffalo hunt and a bibliography.

This is a fascinating parallel story to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books. Rose has Laura’s same independent spirit and desire to help her family, and she even calls her parents Ma and Pa. It’s a much-needed portrayal of the indigenous people of the plains who are often marginalized in the Little House books.

Raven’s Ribbons by Tasha Spillett, illustrated by Daniel Ramirez (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 32 pages, ages 4-8). Raven loves participating in round dances with his family and friends, and his favorite part is watching the ribbon skirts. His grandmother is famous for making these colorful garments that are created with just the right ribbons for each dancer. When Raven asks if he can have a ribbon skirt, Grandma says, “I’ve lived for a long time, Nosesim, and have never seen a boy in a ribbon skirt.” While Raven sleeps, however, she works late into the night, and by morning there is a beautiful ribbon skirt that looks just like a rainbow. “I’ve lived for a long time, Nosesim,” she tells him, “And I’m lucky to see beautiful things that I’ve never seen before.” Includes notes from the author and the illustrator with additional information about the Round Dance and Two-Spirit people.

This simple story celebrates Indigenous dancing as well as offering a gentle, empowering message about being yourself and affirming gender differences. I loved how Grandmother was able to acknowledge both that a boy wearing a ribbon skirt was new to her and that there can be beauty in doing things in a new way.

Sojourner Truth

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Sojourner Truth statue in Florence, Massachusetts

As you may have heard, March is Women’s History Month, and to celebrate, I’m visiting women’s history sites here in my home state of Massachusetts. I’ll be posting about them each week in March, starting with a surprising one close to home that I discovered not long ago.

I’ve lived in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts for almost a decade now, but I only recently learned that Sojourner Truth spent 14 years in Northampton, about six miles from where I live. She moved there in 1843 to join the Northampton Association of Education and Industry, an abolitionist utopian community that she was a part of for the four years that it existed. In 1850, she bought a house in Florence, a village of Northampton, and lived there until she moved to Michigan in 1857.

Did you know Sojourner Truth never said “Ain’t I a woman?” in her most famous speech? She delivered that speech at the Akron, Ohio, Women’s Rights Convention in 1851, but a white abolitionist named Frances Dana Barker Gage published a very different version in 1863, giving it the voice of a southern Black woman. In fact, Sojourner Truth, originally named Isabella Baumfree, was born into slavery in Rifton, New York, and grew up speaking Dutch, maintaining a Dutch accent throughout her life.

Isabella escaped slavery with her infant daughter in 1826 but was forced to leave her other children behind. In 1828, she became the first Black person to win a court case against a white man when she obtained freedom for her son, who had been sold and sent to Alabama. Fifteen years later, Isabella changed her name to Sojourner Truth. Although women were often barred from leadership by male abolitionists, and Black women were marginalized in the suffrage movement, Sojourner Truth lived up to her chosen name, traveling around the country as a speaker and activist for both causes.

If you want to learn more, a good place to start is with So Tall Within: Sojourner Truth’s Long Walk Toward Freedom by Newbery Honor author Gary D. Schmidt and illustrated by Caldecott and Coretta Scott Honor winner Daniel Minter (Roaring Brook Press, 2018). And I’d love to learn about other women’s history sites, so share your favorites in the comments!

Two books for Ramadan

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Almost Sunset by Wahab Algarmi (HarperAlley, 224 pages, grades 4-7). Hassan is fasting for Ramadan in this graphic novel, and, although it’s his third year doing so, this year seems harder than before. He’s going to the mosque for nightly prayers with his father for the first time, and there’s not as much community support as there was when his family was back in Yemen. Not only is Hassan falling asleep in math class, but he’s not performing up to par on the soccer field, getting shown up by teammate and frenemy Rosie. Everywhere he goes, Hassan sees delicious food, and when some cousins talk him into sneaking off for snacks, he’s wracked with guilt. When Hassan finally tells his soccer coach why his performance is off and he’s leaving practices early, he’s happily surprised to learn that Coach is also observing Ramadan with his own fast. Finally, Eid arrives, and Hassan is rewarded for his determination with a joyous celebration that include friends and family who help him to acknowledge his perseverance and to forgive himself for mistakes.

Muslim kids observing Ramadan will relate to Hassan’s struggles and hopefully learn to open up to those around them about what is going on with them for the month; non-Muslims will learn more about Ramadan and how to support their friends. The artwork is excellent, with lots of wordless pages that move the story along at a good clip, and some funny pictures of Hassan imagining food in all kinds of contexts.

The Gift of Eid by Shifa Saltagi Safadi, illustrated by Aaliya Jaleel (Holiday House, 40 pages, ages 4-8). Yasmine and Mama are shopping in Damascus’s Souq Al-Hamidiyeh. They’re both grieving the recent death of Yasmine’s dad, and Yasmine wishes she could find the perfect Eid gift to bring a smile to Mama’s face. When she sees a sign offering money for jewelry, she sells the chain she’s wearing around her neck. At the Masjid Al-Umawi mosque, Mama and Yasmine meet up again for prayers. At the end, they agree to exchange early Eid gifts, but when Yasmine gives Mama the beautiful box she’s bought for Mama to keep her bracelet in, Mama starts to laugh. She sold the bracelet to buy Yasmine a charm to put on her gold chain. They realize that their love for each other is the greatest gift they can give, and head for home with a charm but no chain, a box but no bracelet, and “all the love we need.” Includes an author’s note about how her childhood in Syria inspired this story.

Based on the O. Henry story The Gift of the Magi, this sweet story introduces readers to daily life in Syria, beautifully portrayed in the illustrations. It’s also a tale of grief and healing, as Yasmine and Mama look for ways to help each other through a difficult time.