These are way too long and complex for storytime, but I just couldn't see them come in and not read them.
Founding Mothers: Remembering the Ladies
Cokie Roberts, illustrated by Diane Goode
ISBN: 9780060780029
I really picked this up because of the illustrations - I hadn't noticed the author until I started writing this review. The endpages on this book are especially worthy of note - made up of collections of writings of the founding mothers. Very impressive, and beautifully done.
Inside, we get an introduction from the author explaining how the concept of the "founding mothers" was missing when she was in school, so she decided to correct the lapse (I agree with her), then we get a quick timeline of what the "founding" timeperiod comprises (1765-1815) and then we're straight into a spread biography of each woman - when they were in time, what they focused on, what they loved and hated, and what they are remembered for.
Eliza Lucas Pinckney (indigo)
Deborah Read Franklin (Ben Franklin's wife and business manager while he was in "exile" in France
Mercy Otis Warren (letter-writer/campaigner)
(brief pause for a spread on Women Writers of the time)
Phillis Wheatley (former slave, child prodigy)
Abigail Adams (wife and mother to presidents/presidential advisor)
Martha Washington (troop support/first First Lady/vaccine promoter)
(brief pause for a spread on Women Warriors of the time)
Esther DeBerdt Reed (fund-raiser/campaigner)
Sarah Livingstone Jay (expat patriot)
Catharine Littlefield Greene (Washington supporter/troop morale booster)
Dolley Madison (rescued orphans)
Grandfather Gandhi
Arun Gandhi and Bethany Hegedus, illustrated by Evan Turk
ISBN: 9781442423657
mixed-media collage, rich colors, sharp edges.
This is a lovely powerful book. If I had slightly older children, I'd pair it with Peace, Baby, and have a storytime of the power of CHOOSING peace. A grandchild of Gandhi comes to the commune, and is frustrated by the simple life there, by sacrifices, by racial tensions, by having to share his famous grandfather, and by his own inability to live in a feeling of peace. The pivotal moment is when Gandhi reveals that not feeling anger isn't the goal - it's deciding what to DO with that anger. Do we lash out and destroy like lightning, or do we harness the power of our anger like electricity to fuel our futures?
The mixed-media collage is mostly strings and threads and cloth, and when they appear, they're almost three-dimensional, inviting the reader to reach out and touch these characters.
Really impressive.
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