Becoming RBG: Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Journey to Justice by Debbie Levy and Whitney Gardner

 

This outstanding biographical graphic novel not only illuminated the life of feminist legal pioneer Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but it also showed how she systematically used the law to open up opportunities for women. I was fascinated by the step-by-step progression of cases that she took on that led the courts to make decisions that bolstered the idea of gender equality. While accessible to 6th graders and older students, the graphic novel format is an ideal way for readers of any age to understand the genius of this woman who has had an affect on every American's life. Highly recommended for middle and high schoolers and adults--a great addition to nonfiction graphic novel collections and biography collections. Also should be required reading for aspiring law students. 

Dreamer: A Graphic Memoir by by Akim Aliu, Greg Anderson Elysée, Karen De la Vega (Illustrator), Marcus Williams (Illustrator)

 

This graphic memoir is perfect for middle schoolers. It tells the true story of Akim Aliu, a Ukrainian-Nigerian boy who moves to Canada and discovers the sport of hockey. Unfortunately, as a dark skinned child he faces overt discrimination and many obstacles on his path to becoming a professional hockey player. It's a story of family and friendship and overcoming great challenges. Akim Aliu and Greg Anderson Elysee spoke to the 6th graders at my school and kids were riveted and loved their book. This is essential for middle school classrooms and libraries. 

Victory. Stand!: Raising My Fist for Justice by Tommie Smith

 

This award-winning graphic novel absolutely blew me away. It tells the story of Tommie Smith, Olympic runner and champion of justice, beginning with his childhood as a sharecropper's son in Alabama. His family fled the south for opportunities in California, and that's where Tommie discovered his athletic talent. He faced numerous hurdles and racial injustice (including being called the n word) but he managed to excel in the classroom and on the track and in college classes. He stood for justice in his teens and twenties, but never more so than after winning the Olympic gold medal. Young readers will relate to his family life, his loving parents, his athletic dreams, and his growing need to stand up for fairness and freedom. It is an American shame that he was not hailed as a hero until many years later. I recommend this book to EVERYONE--from middle school-up. Give this one to kids and adults. 

Never Caught, the Story of Ona Judge: George and Martha Washington's Courageous Slave Who Dared to Run Away by Erica Armstrong Dunbar and Kathleen Van Cleve

Ona Judge is an American hero that most people don't know. She was enslaved by George and Martha Washington and she dared to stand up against the president of the United States by fleeing to freedom. There is much that is not known about Ona Judge's life, but these authors have put together many puzzle pieces in order to paint a vivid picture of her life and the difficulty she faced when she dared to escape to freedom. We learn about the struggles of the enslaved people at Mt. Vernon as well as life in Philadelphia and New York City in the late 1700s. I was fascinated to learn about the evolution of abolitionist thought and how laws were made to protect slave owners, even in the north. Many Americans grow up learning only positive things about our country's founding fathers, especially George Washington, but this book shows them as the flawed people that they were. Ona's story should be widely known, and I recommend this excellent book to readers of all ages.

When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed

Many readers know Victoria Jamieson for her wildly popular graphic novels, Roller Girl and All's Faire in Middle School. Jamieson brings her vibrant, expressive illustrations to a different kind of story to share Omar Mohamed's life with young readers. The book begins in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. Omar and his brother Hassan sleep in their own tent alone, although they are only children. A woman named Fatuma looks out for them, but she is not their mother. You find out that the boys fled Somalia together, and hold out hope that their mother is alive somewhere. Omar spends his days (which are generally long, monotonous, and filled with hunger) taking care of his brother Hassan, who does not speak and has some other disabilities. When Omar is asked to attend school he is afraid to leave Hassan even for a few hours a day. When he does go to school he discovers that he is smart and that education might be his way out of the camps if only he can get resettled in another country. Jamieson and Mohamed have told this story perfectly. This gem should be read by EVERYONE.

Some Writer! The Story of E.B. White by Melissa Sweet

To call this book merely a biography of E.B. White would be to do it an injustice. Each page of this visual masterpiece is a work of art that incorporates original drawings, as well as quotes, letters, and New Yorker cartoons in order to bring to life the man most famous for writing Charlotte's Web. White, who also wrote for the New Yorker and other publications for many years and co-wrote The Elements of Style, wrote copious letters in his lifetime and left behind a lot of information for author/illustrator Melissa Sweet to pull together. It's a sophisticated book that will appeal to some children, but there is much here for readers of any age to enjoy. This work of art should be given to any adult who loves the New Yorker, who has ever referred to Strunk and White's Elements of Style, or who has ever read Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little.

Turning 15 on the Road to Freedom by Lynda Blackmon Lowery

There is a lot of interest in the Selma voting rights march and this memoir makes Selma and the preceding marches come alive from the perspective of a young person. Lynda Blackmon was actively participating in civil rights protests in Selma before the famous march to Montgomery. In this memoir she talks about how those marches were organized and how her black teachers helped students leave school to participate. Lynda was jailed numerous times and often was fearful, but she continued to participate and was supported by her family and friends. She was beaten on Bloody Sunday, and then became the youngest person to march all the way from Selma to Montgomery. It was on that march that she turned 15 years old. This story is told in the first person and is easy to read. It is written in chapters but it reads like a personal essay. Students as young as fifth graders will have no problem understanding Lynda's story and will learn a great deal about the events surrounding the Selma march, including the deaths of Jimmie Lee Jackson and Viola Liuzzo. This would be an excellent addition to a middle school Civil Rights unit.

March by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell

I thought this graphic novel was fantastic. It tells the story of one of my heroes, civil rights activist John Lewis. It begins on a bridge in Selma then moves to his congressional office on the day of Obama's inauguration. The story then flashes back to Lewis's childhood on a farm raising chickens. We see him make it to college (a remarkable accomplishment at the time) and decide to join in the movement to desegregate lunch counters. This is Book One so we must wait for future books to hear about the Freedom Rides and the March on Washington. It's a great story with fine artwork and I hope it introduces many new young people to John Lewis's contributions to the Civil Rights Movement.

Discovering Wes Moore by Wes Moore

This autobiography of a man named Wes Moore has an interesting twist. While it is mainly the story of the author's life and the circumstances that led him from a life on the streets to a successful military career and a Rhodes scholarship, it is also the story of another man named Wes Moore who grew up under similar circumstances but ended up imprisoned. The author's story is compelling by itself—he lost his father at age three and his mother struggled and sacrificed to keep him on the right track. The other Wes Moore's story gets less time in the book—he lived in the same Baltimore neighborhood, but fathered several children at a young age, got into drugs and crime, and was arrested for his part in the murder of a police officer. The two Wes Moores have become friends and the author's point is to show how fine the line is between their two lives. He credits many people with watching out for him, caring about his future, and holding up high expectations for his behavior and education. This is the young people's version of the same story by the same author. Unfortunately, it felt too simplified to me. While I like the story I think that even middle or high school kids would be able to handle more depth and complexity. However, this may appeal to kids who will see themselves in the two Wes Moores. I think it would be best received by middle schoolers—and it would certainly be a good choice for a biography assignment.

Jane Austen: A Life Revealed by Catherine Reef

This biography of Jane Austen is a good fit for middle and high school students with an interest in Jane Austen and her novels. While there is a frustrating lack of information about Austen's life, Reef does a good job of conveying what is known and explaining why some things are unknown. The book is heavily padded with plot descriptions of the novels with a little commentary interspersed—which may help young readers better understand the novels. Photos from various movie adaptations of Austen's books make the book more interesting visually. Recommended for readers who (like me) enjoy Austen's books and the corresponding movies and want to know the story-behind-the-story.

In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer by Irene Gut Opdyke

I am in awe of Irene Gut, the author of this book. She lived in Poland during World War II and rather than giving in to Hitler and the German army she fought to save the lives of the Jews around her. She was only 17 when war broke out and she was separated from her family and traveling with the Polish army as a nurse. Russian soldiers attacked and raped her and she later was forced to work for the German army as a cook and a housekeeper. Her first act of resistance was to pass food into a ghetto. From there she slowly took more and more risks to save Jewish lives until finally she was transporting Jews to a hideout in the forest, hiding them in her workplace, and harboring them in the basement of the home where she was living and working as a housekeeper for a Nazi commander. She was always fearful for her life but never stopped doing what she thought was right. It was heartening to read about numerous others who also were helping in a time of unbelievable horrors. I would recommend this to 8th graders on up through adults.

Maus: A Survivor's Tale Volume 1: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman

Art Spiegelman's father, Vladek, survived many horrors during the Holocaust, including being imprisoned at Auschwitz. Years later he was a crotchety older man living in New York when his son interviewed him about his life experiences. This graphic novel tells his story alternating between the sometimes difficult father-son relationship of the present and the gripping survival stories from the past. It starts out before the war when Vladek was a prosperous young man and the reader gets a sense of how gradually the repressive Nazi measures took effect. It's an amazing story for all ages and one that could really bring the Holocaust to life for mature teen readers. This book is only part one—to find out what happened in Auschwitz you must read Maus II.

She Touched the World: Laura Bridgman, Deaf-Blind Pioneer by Sally Hobart Alexander and Robert Alexander

This biography of Laura Bridgman was fascinating. Years before Helen Keller became famous for her accomplishments, Laura went blind and deaf at the age of two. At that time no one had ever taught someone to read and communicate who had both of these disabilities. Laura was lonely and hard to deal with until she was sent away to a blind school to learn from Dr. Howe. She learned finger spelling quickly and from there the world was opened up to her. According to this book she was one of the most famous people in the U.S. in the early 1800s. She showed the world that all people, no matter what their challenges, should be given the opportunity to learn and live a meaningful life. The techniques Dr. Howe developed with Laura went on to be used with Helen Keller and many others after her. One of the book's authors is herself blind and deaf and in the final chapter she explains how life is different for people today with these disabilities. This book flowed well, was easy to understand, and could be appreciated by readers in 5th grade on up through adults. Recommended for people who like to read about people overcoming big challenges.

In Defiance of Hitler: The Secret Mission of Varian Fry by Carla Killough McClafferty

This book is one more example of "all I ever needed to know I learned from children's nonfiction." I had never even heard of Varian Fry before I picked up this book. He was a pretty ordinary American man who volunteered for a two-week rescue mission during World War II. The plan was to go to Marseilles, France and find war refugees wanted by the Nazis and get them to safety. His specific mission was to save a specific list of important artists, writers, and thinkers who were in grave danger of being sent to concentration camps. The mission took all of his creativity, stamina, and skills and in it Fry found the most meaningful days of his life. The two weeks spread out into more than a year as Fry desperately tried every way he could think of to get refugees out of France, into Spain, then Portugal, then on to other countries. Together witha selfless staff of other unsung heroes, Fry ultimately saved about 2,000 people from death at the hands of the Nazis. Sadly, his work destroyed his marriage and he never found another endeavor that so fully used his skills and his compassion. McClafferty's research is excellent and her organization makes this book easy to read and understand. She deftly shows how difficult and draining the work was and how many obstacles the rescuers faced. Middle schoolers with an interest in World War II could definitely appreciate this book, but I believe it is equally appropriate for high school students as well as adults. It's an inspiring look at an unsung hero. 

The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary by Candace Fleming

Do you like reading about what people's lives were really like? Do you want to know what Abraham and Mary Lincoln were like as human beings? Do you wonder how they treated their kids, how they treated each other, and what other people thought of them? The detail about the Lincolns in their public and personal lives is what makes this book fascinating. Every page is stuffed with photos and captions and text about every imaginable aspect of the Lincoln's lives and relationships. It's much more than a scrapbook, however. Fleming did a huge amount of research and arranged information into short, readable segments that could be browsed or read straight through. Abraham and Mary were both complex people. Mary's behavior, especially, is puzzling, but she was certainly not the lunatic that some believed she was. And it's hard to imagine a person sacrificing more of himself for what he believed in than did Abraham Lincoln. It's a nice complement to Lincoln through the Lens, which has less of the nosy details of life but has photographs and insights of its own. If you like this style, read Our Eleanor, also by Candace Fleming. It's fabulous.

Lincoln through the Lens by Martin W. Sandler

I thought I knew some things about Abraham Lincoln, but I have learned a lot more after reading a couple of new and outstanding nonfiction books. This one focuses on the role photography played in Lincoln's life and it includes many large, well-captioned photos to go along with the clear, concise text. The focus on photography is the author's slant, but Lincoln's whole life is covered in this gorgeous book. Each two-page spread deals with a portion of Lincoln's life in words, photographs, and includes a relevant quotation from Lincoln, so it's a book that's easily browsed. However, if you want to really understand Lincoln through his photos, read the whole book. I would not be surprised to see this win the Sibert Award. Highly recommended for readers from 6th grade on up through adulthood.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah

This true story about the horrors of war was not written for teenagers, but it's a story that mature teens could understand and learn from. Ishmael, a 12-year-old boy from Sierra Leone was caught up in a horrible civil war in the 1990s. With his village destroyed and his family missing he tried to escape on foot with some other boys. Average citizens feared groups of boys because they thought they were part of the rebel army. Members of the actual rebel army looked for young boys to force them into serving as soldiers. With no where to go and everyone after him, Ishmael makes it to a village and finds out that his family is alive and nearby. Unfortunately, they are brutally murdered by rebels just before Ishmael arrives in their village. From that point, Ishmael joins the Army and becomes a brutal killer himself. He spends a few years this way before a United Nations group "rescues" him and gets him back on a better track. It's a gripping and heartbreaking story that people should know about so that maybe it will never happen again.

Marie Curie by Kathleen Krull

If you have to read a biography of a scientist, make sure you find one by Kathleen Krull. She digs into the lives of famous people and finds the things that normal people (like me!) find interesting. Yes, Marie Curie was a great scientist who won the Nobel Prize and discovered radioactivity, but Krull tells us all the other interesting stuff that we really want to know. How did this smart girl from Poland overcome the prejudice against women that kept women from studying science? How did her love affair with her employer's son almost get her into trouble? What was her relationship with her husband like? What about the affair she had after he died? If you read this book you will know all about Marie Curie the scientist and Marie Curie the human being. And she was amazing in both categories! You can't go wrong with the Giants of Science biographies. Sigmund Freud and Isaac Newton are also part of this series.

To Dance: A Ballerina's Graphic Novel by Siena Cherson Siegel

This beautiful book is a memoir (an autobiography) of a girl who dreamed of being a ballerina. The author, from Puerto Rico, moved to New York City as a girl to attend the School of American Ballet. She spent years there learning, performing, and working incredibly hard. The artwork in this graphic novel shows the freedom and joy of dance as seen through young Siena's eyes. I learned a lot about the life of a dancer from reading this book. Girls who like to dance (or who dream of dancing) will love it!

Elvis Up Close by Wilborn Hampton

Can you imagine a time when rock and roll didn't exist? When there was no such thing as popular music just for teenagers? This book makes it easy to understand how poor, small-town Elvis developed a new kind of music and was catapulted into unbelievable fame. Elvis started out as a shy kid who played guitar and liked gospel and hillbilly music. He had a pleasant voice that could be sweet or edgy, and he could make girls scream just by moving his hips. Find out fame changed Elvis into a different person and eventually led to addiction and an early death. This book is compact and to the point, and also easy to read and understand. This is a great new series of biographies for middle schoolers (we also have Johnny Cash and Rachel Carson and Oprah Winfrey in this series).