As this presidential draws near, I remember my mother working at our local polling place. Until I read this book, I never realized my mother would have remembered when women gained the right to vote in a national election in 1920.  STORIES OF WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE: Votes for Women tells of five women, in particular, who diligently worked over a fifty year period to gain this right for women.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton began her work prior to the Civil War when many laws were unfavorable towards women. First she worked as an abolitionist before moving into women’s rights. In 1851, she met Susan B. Anthony and began collaborating with her. During the Civil War Elizabeth helped the abolitionists as she could. Then after the war, “Elizabeth and many other campaigners for women’s rights to vote became frustrated as more people began to support the right of black men to vote. Elizabeth refused to support the vote for black men only, instead demanding that this right should be extended to black and white women, too.” (22)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony made a good team. Elizabeth liked working behind the scenes and Susan liked being out in front of the crowd. Elizabeth was the mother of seven children, while Susan never married. Susan traveled around the country giving speeches. She was very good at strategy, such as, scheduling her talks “just before politicians were due to discuss changes to the law. This got the attention of the newspapers and the lawmakers themselves.” (34) Susan used the 14th and 15th Amendments as the basis of her arguments. In 1872, Susan registered to vote, voted, and was then arrested for voting.

Across the Atlantic Ocean in Britain, Clementina Black was working to improve the lives of poorer working women. Clementina was asking for equal pay for equal work, breaks during the work time, limited hours to a work day, and a legal minimum wage. “Clementina’s work and writing has helped lay the ground for other campaigners for women’s rights, who were ready to give their lives for the right to vote.” (61)

Carrie Chapman Catt married newspaper man Leo Chapman and “became co-editor of the newspaper.”(65) Sometime after Leo’s death, Carrie married a wealthy George Catt who agreed with her views on women’s rights. George, on occasion, spoke for women’s rights with Carrie at rallies. Carrie’s strategy was to get women the right to vote at the state level and then finally get an Amendment to the Constitution.

Emmeline Pankhurst, in Britain, saw that peaceful protests were not achieving the results women wanted. Her motto was, “Deeds, not words.” She wanted the issues in front of the public everyday, in every way, even if it meant chaining women to fences shouting about women’s suffrage, so they couldn’t be removed and arrested.

Britain’s women could vote by 1918, if they were 30 years old, which changed to 21 years old in 1928. In the United States, the 19th Amendment was passed in 1920, though women in varying states could vote on local issues before then. Washington state women could vote by 1910.

These longer bios are followed by five one page mini-bios on: Lucretia Mott, Alice Paul, Millicent Fawcett, Annie Kenney, and Emily Davison.

Then, there is a timeline, Facthound.com, glossary, and index.

I’m a fan of this whole series.  They both share the real-time science currently being investigated and studied in different parts of the world (in this case about sea turtles), and also share about the life and work of the scientists themselves.  Illustrated with full-color photographs, they offer readers a chance to be fascinated by creatures they didn’t know were fascinating, and they also inform students about career possibilities in the sciences.  This one does a particularly good job of communicating the dangers faced by the leatherback sea turtles, and efforts being made to help them, while also making clear that there is still much that is still unknown.

I’m a fan of this whole series.  They both share the real-time science currently being investigated and studied in different parts of the world (in this case about octopuses), and also share about the life and work of the scientists themselves.  Illustrated with full-color photographs, they offer readers a chance to be fascinated by creatures they didn’t know were fascinating, and they also inform students about career possibilities in the sciences.

It’s shiny and attractive.  They had good graphic designers working on this series, and they include lots of bright color photos so that if you just pick it up and flip through the pages it looks like it’s going to be really interesting.  But it’s not.  It’s got all the basic information.  But it reads like a textbook, with absolutely no effort put into the writing in terms of making any of this information sound interesting, let alone enchanting, as the series title claims.

It’s shiny and attractive.  They had good graphic designers working on this series, and they include lots of bright color photos so that if you just pick it up and flip through the pages it looks like it’s going to be really interesting.  But it’s not.  It’s got all the basic information.  But it reads like a textbook, with absolutely no effort put into the writing in terms of making any of this information sound interesting, let alone enchanting, as the series title claims.

According to the flap on the back of the dust jacket, both author and illustrator are award-winners in their fields.  But picture books depend upon the story and the illustrations supporting each other and enhancing each other, but in this case they don’t.  The pictures really don’t seem to even fit the story.  The story’s not bad on its own.  It opens with a little girl describing her perfect pet to her parents (soft and cuddly and quick and strong, able to both fly and swim, able to shrink so small it can hide anywhere, and also to grow big enough to protect her).  After her parents tell her such a pet does not exist, she goes to bed and meets her perfect pet, and enjoys a whole night of adventures with it.  The illustrations, though kind of cool in their own right, don’t fit the story:  when the words say the creature is soft and cuddly, it looks rather sharp and geometric; when the words describe it’s sparkling eyes, the illustrations don’t support that, the wings that are described as broad and beautiful appear rather small and stubby.

If you are going to buy it for your library, you’ve got to be prepared to buy the whole series, and warn your patrons that this is most definitely the kind of series that one really needs to read in order.  This book alone does not stand on its own feet — it’s more like a mid-season episode of a TV series.  The reader who picks this up to read without having read the earlier books must constantly work at piecing together what’s going on, always well aware that there’s more they don’t know.  That being said, the action is good, the themes of good v. evil (and trying to figure out which is which) are good, the characters seem likeable (though not terribly well-developed in this title alone).

The characters are likable and believable, and facing issues a lot of kids would relate to:  feeling dumb because of school struggles.  For the kids who can’t personally relate, this book is the kind of story that will give them insight into struggles that others face, and help them develop empathy.  The one element of the story that I, as a teacher, did not find believable was that Ally, a fifth grader, has up until now managed to keep all of the adults in her life from knowing that she can’t read.  Though there might have been a time when students could hide such things by acting out like Ally does, our educational world has become so driven by testing data, that there’s no way she would now be in a new school for even a month without someone conducting a reading fluency test.  But kids aren’t going to clue into that, and many may like to think that others are in the dark.  The best thing about this book is that it makes it really clear that Ally is smart, despite her dyslexia.

It’s the second book in a series (and by the looks of things, the middle book of a trilogy), but it reads decently, even if one hasn’t read the first book.  It’s obvious to the reader that there is history among the characters, which might encourage someone who likes this one to go back and read the other, but there’s enough explanation offered so that this book stands okay on its own, without leaving the reader constantly trying to fill holes to figure out what’s going on.  It’s set in late-nineteenth-century London.  The main character, Jem, is a young boy on his own, trying to make his way in the world however he can.  Jem becomes aware that there’s been a rash of children going missing, all within the same neighborhood, and he enlists the help of expert bogler, Alfred, dragging him out of retirement, and offering his services as bogler’s boy, which basically translates as bogle bait.  The team must put themselves in danger and figure out why there have been so many bogles in such close quarters (apparently highly unusual behavior for bogles) in order to save the city from this plague.  It’s engaging, and just scary enough.

Most people totally take for granted the food that arrives in their grocery story.  They also probably feel that their store gives them a large variety of fruits, vegetables and grains.  But many, many facts in The Story of Seeds will surprise readers and more than likely push them to try new varieties that are offered and/or buy from farmer’s markets and co-ops.  Only 150 of the 12,000 plant species are grown for sale in the world today.  Because of this, seed varieties have gone extinct.  This book examines both the factors that have led to this condition as well as the pioneers in cultivation and preservation that are trying to retain what we have left.  Who would have thought that seeds were a goal for capture in World War II?  Would one believe that there is a Doom’s Day Seed Vault in a mountain in Norway?  There is much to be said to the complexity of the world of seeds.  This book would be fabulous for a student wanting to research a unique topic.