Bring New Children's Books to Life with Crafts and Games

March 2 - Today's post contributed by Penny Peck

Many children prefer to learn with hands on activities, so crafts and games are a great way to celebrate women in history.  Instead of sounding like a history lesson, this interactive format can attract a wide age range of children who will enjoy the crafts and art projects, as well as some fun games. Today, I am going to outline some simple do-it-yourself programming ideas tied to new children’s books on great women and their accomplishments.

The books and related activities are divided by age appeal, so you can use an activity with the appropriate grade level. For example, you can use books for young children in a storytime, along with the suggested hands-on activity, or use one of the books for tweens in a book discussion group who would also enjoy the related project. If a class comes for a library tour, you can read one of the short books suggested for that grade, or do booktalks if the class is 4th grade and up, and offer one of the activities that relate to those books.

You can also offer just one of these activities as a “passive program.”  Just set up the supplies for one activity, along with a poster outlining the instructions, for parent and child to do together at a library table.  These activities can also be adapted to the classroom, bookstore, or museum, since they fall into the type of “living history” activities that are so popular.  

Here are several books and a hands-on activity relating to each, which would be a great focus for a Women’s History program.

Books for Grades 4-8:















Conkling, Winifred. Passenger on the Pearl: The True Story of Emily Edmonson’s Flight from Slavery. Algonquin, 2015.

    Born a slave in 1782, Edmonson dreamed her children would be free. Filled with illustrations and sidebars, this history of their escape on a schooner in 1848 is an empowering look at an unknown true story. For a related activity, make paper quilt blocks similar to those thought to be used on the Underground Railroad: http://page.reallygoodstuff.com/pdfs/154227.pdf .  

Draper, Sharon M. Stella by Starlight. Atheneum, 2015.

    Stella uses writing to help her cope with the challenges of being an African-American girl in 1932 in North Carolina. Combining both sobering issues like segregation with humorous incidents like a Christmas pageant, this thoughtful novel will inspire readers to try their own hands at writing. Make journals out of cereal boxes: www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/cereal-box-books .

Gherman, Beverly. First Mothers. Clarion, 2015.

    Short sketches of the U.S. Presidents’ mothers are the focus of this engaging collective biography. Watercolor and pencil illustrations bring these important figures to life – perfect for Mothers’ Day! For an activity, children can make Mothers’ Day cards for the important women in their lives: www.allkidsnetwork.com/crafts/mothers-day/ .

Grimes, Nikki. Chasing Freedom: The Life Journeys of Harriet Tubman and Susan B. Anthony, Inspired by Historical Facts. Orchard/Scholastic, 2015.

    One-page vignettes describe the fictional friendship of Harriet Tubman and Susan B. Anthony, with factual information that shows the shared goals of these two women would have made them fast friends if they had met. Dramatic illustrations by Michelle Wood add to the enjoyment.  For an activity, have readers write a letter to a famous woman they would like to meet, including elected officials, sports figures, entertainers, scientists or astronauts, or business leaders: www.readingrockets.org/article/introduction-letter-writing .

Kanefield, Teri. The Girl from the Tar Paper School: Barbara Rose Johns and the Advent of the Civil Rights Movement. Abrams, 2014.

    Barbara Rose Johns is no longer an unsung hero in the Civil Rights movement, thanks to this book packed with photos and interesting information. In 1951, Johns led a walkout of her segregated high school to protest unfair conditions. For a related activity, readers can do something to benefit their own schools, including holding a book drive for the school library: www.instructables.com/id/Easy-book-drive-at-your-school/ .

Pinkney, Andrea Davis. The Red Pencil. Little Brown, 2014.

    Set in Darfur about ten years ago, this novel in free verse describes the life of a 12-year-old girl and her experience in a refugee camp. Amira dreams of going to school to learn to read and write, something her traditional mother doesn’t support. Celebrate this true-to-life novel by making sandpaper art. Using crayons, draw on coarse sandpaper to create pictures of animals, scenery, or people. www.dltk-kids.com/world/egypt/sand_paper_art.htm.

Books for Grades 1-3:

Fern, Tracey E. Dare the Wind: The Record-Breaking Voyage of Eleanor Prentiss and the Flying Cloud. Farrar, 2014.

  Prentiss was the navigator on the Flying Cloud, a ship that made a record-breaking voyage from New York City to San Francisco in 1851. This picture book biography brings that achievement to life. Children can make a ship model following these instructions: www.redtedart.com/2013/06/08/boat-craft-ideas-for-summer/ .

McCully, Emily Arnold. Queen of the Diamond: The Lizzie Murphy Story. Farrar, 2015.

    Lizzie Murphy became a professional baseball player in the early 1900’s, and is the star of this picture book biography. Murphy’s life is an excellent example of a person standing up for herself against prejudice, doubt, and opposition. For a related activity, offer these baseball word search puzzles: http://homeschooling.about.com/od/freeprintables/ss/baseball.htm .

Editors Note: Emily Arnold McCully will be our featured contributor on March 6th!

Paul, Miranda. One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia. Millbrook, 2015.

    In the 1980’s, Isatou Ceesay noticed that discarded plastic bags were harming the environment and animals in her native Gambia, so she came upon a solution. She crocheted strips of the plastic bags into purses to sell! Have tweens create their own bookbags by weaving strips of plastic bags: www.instructables.com/id/Woven-Plastic-Bag-Bag/.

Tonatiuh, Duncan. Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation. Abrams, 2014.

    In both the straightforward text and the dramatic, stylized illustrations, readers will learn about the court case that integrated California schools in the late 1940’s. The Mendez family fought for all children to attend local schools at a time when segregated “Mexican” schools were the norm. For a related activity, children can make some authentic Mexican crafts such as papel picado:  www.teachkidsart.net/mexican-papel-picado/ .

Books for Preschool – Kindergarten:

Martin, Jacqueline Briggs. Alice Waters and the Trip to Delicious. Readers to Eaters, 2014.

    This picture book biography celebrates Berkeley restaurant-owner and chef Alice Waters, who founded the Edible Schoolyard Project to promote healthy school lunches. One activity could involve growing a library vegetable garden if you have the space. Or, have children decorate flower pots planted with carrot seeds for their own home mini-gardens: www.kiddiegardens.com/painting_clay_pots.html .

Spires, Ashley. The Most Magnificent Thing. Kids Can Press, 2014.

    In this picture book, a girl attempts to make a “magnificent thing” with unsuccessful results, until she learns to plan her project. Readers will take away the notion that invention takes several attempts as well as solid planning. For a related activity, use up all your leftover craft materials and recyclables and allow children to make their own collages, sculptures, or art projects: http://artfulparent.com/collage-art-ideas-kids .

Penny Peck has been a children's librarian for over 25 years; before that, she was Snow White and Mother Goose at Children's Fairyland in Oakland, ran a nightclub, worked as the wardrobe mistress for the Berkeley Ballet, and was an agent for a standup comedian. Her experience includes performing thousands of storytimes, leading hundreds of book club discussions for students in grades 4-12, conducting hundreds of school tours and assemblies, and reviewing children's books and media. She is editor of "BayNews," the newsletter for the Association of Children's Librarians of Northern California, www.bayviews.org.  Since 2002 she has been a part-time instructor at San Jose State University, specializing in classes on youth and teen services and programming, and has written three books on children’s services, published by Libraries Unlimited, including Crash Course in Children’s Services: 2nd Edition (2014), Crash Course in Storytime Fundamentals: 2nd Edition (2015), and Reader’s Advisory for Children and Tweens (2010).

Light Your Handmade Lamp for Women's Suffrage

March 19 - Today's post contributed by Kerrie Logan Hollihan

Light Your Handmade Lamp for Women’s Suffrage

When I was in AP American history class at North Allegheny High School a long time ago, the guy who sat in front of me mentioned a couple lines in our textbook that showed up on one of our tests.  “The Grimkee sisters?” he said, shaking his head as if to say “Who could possibly care?”

 I agreed.  Who could possibly care about a couple of women who did some minor thing about abolition?

Later I did -- much later. Fast forward 40+ years, when I wrote about them in my book Rightfully Ours: How Women Won the Vote, which appears this year on the ALA Amelia Bloomer List. The sisters, Angelina and Sarah Grimké, daughters of a Southern judge and slave owner, hated the idea that anyone, including their father, could own other human beings. 

First Sarah, and later Angelina, took the drastic step of leaving home and moving north to Philadelphia. There they became Quaker women, free to speak openly during worship. The Southern sisters then took things further and went on tour to speak about abolition in public meetings. At this point, even their fellow Quakers frowned when the Grimké sisters spoke in public.  Other women -- Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone especially, also found their voices as abolitionists and only later began to work for women’s right to vote.

Rightfully Ours covers the lives of many American women -- some well-known, such as Anthony; others not quite as much: Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul; Carrie Chapman Catt and “footnotes” like the Grimké sisters. I was grateful when my editor suggested I write a history of the American suffrage movement -- CRP was looking for a book on the topic.

My previous book, Elizabeth I: the People’s Queen: Her Life & Times had taken me back to Tudor England, researching and writing the life of one, very strong woman who came to power almost by accident. This time, there was a host of women to study, and by the time I was ready to start writing, I’d read parts of at least 60 books just to feel familiar with these women and the world they inhabited.

Rightfully Ours is my fourth book with Chicago Review Press, and what makes these “For Kids” books a bit different is that we authors must develop at least 21 themed activities to enhance what we write.  Hence the “21 Activities” you’ll see on the cover of most of CRP’s broad-ranging series of books for middle grade readers. We develop these to appeal to a broad audience -- and I blog with my fellow “for Kids” authors Mary Kay Carson and Brandon Marie Miller at Hands-on-Books, where we talk about our books and offer downloadable activities.  (http://hands-on-books.blogspot.com)

In my books I like to include a few activities with a scientific touch. For Rightfully Ours there are several -- one on how to locate Polaris (the North Star), and another, Make a Five-Pointed Star with Just One Cut.

Today I’m sharing a favorite of mine.  In their early days, women like Anthony, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and the Grimké sisters read by the light of whale oil lamps.  I fashioned an activity for Rightfully Ours so that my readers can make lamps of their own using not whale oil of course, but olive oil. It’s easy to make one using things you can find around the house and in craft stores -- and these little lamps really do work!

Kerrie Logan Hollihan writes award-winning nonfiction for young people. Her books have been honored by the ALA’s Amelia Bloomer List, Smithsonian magazine, the National Science Teachers Association, the Chicago Public Library, and the Junior Library Guild.

Hollihan channeled her “inner sixth grade girl who read Compton’s encyclopedia for fun” and started writing for kids in 2005. She’s the author of 38,000 word biography/activity books about Isaac Newton, Theodore Roosevelt, Queen Elizabeth I, and the women’s suffrage movement in the U.S., as well as an early reader series on Latin American celebrations. Either way, Hollihan says, every word counts.

“Kids don’t get enough credit for being able to understand history as it actually happened. As I research and write, I think about how to explain the ‘whys’ of situations as well as the ‘whats.’

“History is filled with great yet fully human men and women with faults and foibles. When I write about famous people and their times, there are tough issues to address -- segregated America and religious persecution in England are topics I’ve explained to my readers.”

Hollihan, mother of two grown children, lives with her pilot husband Bill in Blue Ash, Ohio. 

Susan B. Anthony and Rachel Carson

March 31 - Today’s post provided by The Nonfiction Detectives

The Nonfiction Detectives have the honor of contributing to KidLit’s celebration of Women’s History Month. We write about two women, Susan B. Anthony, the first champion of women’s rights, and Rachel Carson, whose book Silent Spring triggered the environmental movement.

When I think about Women’s History Month, the name Susan B. Anthony pops into my mind right away.  It’s surprising how many children in elementary school are not aware of Anthony’s contributions to women’s history. We own a number of biographies of Susan B. Anthony in the library, but I rarely see boys and girls checking them out for school projects or for pleasure reading. I recently chatted with a group of students about Susan B. Anthony. Most could not tell me what she was known for or what she accomplished. Teachers and librarians take notice, it’s time to break out the Susan B. Anthony books and begin reading aloud to the youngest generation. Alexandra Wallner’s picture book biography, Susan B. Anthony, (Holiday House, 2012) provides young readers with an accessible story of Anthony’s life and accomplishments. In just 32 pages, Wallner describes Anthony’s childhood in Massachusetts, her advocacy for women in her father’s mill, and her work as a schoolteacher before joining forces with Elizabeth Cady Stanton to work on the women’s suffrage movement.

I recently read the book aloud to a group of 8-10 year-olds, and the children were surprised to learn that women in the 1800s had few career choices. They thought it was unfair that women earned less pay than men when performing the same job. The students had a lot of comments and connections when learning that Anthony was arrested for voting in 1872. The children quickly made connections to Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King being jailed for standing up for civil rights.

Susan B. Anthony: Fighter for Women’s Rights by Deborah Hopkinson (Simon Spotlight. 2005) is another picture book biography that could serve as a starting point for students unfamiliar with Anthony’s work for women’s rights. The leveled reader is part of the Ready-to-Read series and would work well as a both a read aloud and as a book for newly independent readers to read on their own.

RACHEL CARSON AND SILENT SPRING

If Susan B. Anthony had not been an advocate for women's equality, would Rachel Carson have had the opportunity to attend college? Luckily, she did because in 1962 Rachel Carson published her most important book, Silent Spring. It was published to applause and severe criticisms. Battling breast cancer, it took the courageous Carson four year to research and write. This important tome was written to alert people that insecticides were deadly to birds, insects, fish, other animals, our land, and also to people.  

In her picture book biography, Rachel Carson and Her Book that Changed the World, (Holiday House, 2012) author Laurie Lawlor and illustrator Laura Beingessner successfully conveys Carson’s determination and indomitable spirit. Most of the book’s 32 pages are devoted to Carson’s early life, her education, her family problems, and the frustration that men would not take her seriously as a scientist. Throughout her lifetime, Carson was a careful observer of nature and was saddened as trees were cut down to build homes and factories whose putrid smells and smoke clogged the air.

Carson also loved the sea and as a marine biologist would write extensively about the ocean. During the 1950’s Carson’s keen sense of observation noticed some disturbing trends. Rising sea temperatures, and more and more garbage being dumped in the ocean was having a disastrous affect on the web of life. The last three pages of this book are devoted to Carson’s work on Silent Spring.  “As early as 1945, Rachel had read about studies of declining bird populations across the country. Each year researchers reported fewer nesting and migrating birds. The more she investigated, the more alarmed she became.”  The chemicals created for use during World War II were being used haphazardly to kill insects on farms, in city parks, nature preserves, swimming pools, in neighborhoods, and even on crowded city streets.

It took great courage to stand up to the big chemical industry. People claim Silent Spring started the whole environmental movement. It certainly had an effect on those who have made it their life work to educate people about the dangers of pesticides and insecticides.

2012 is a presidential election year in the United States, and it’s the perfect time for teachers, librarians, and parents to introduce their children to courageous women, such as Susan B. Anthony and Rachel Carson. Picture books are an excellent way to teach about these brave and determined women.

Editor's Note:

Cathy Potter is K-5 school librarian in Falmouth, Maine. Cathy reviews apps for School Library Journal and currently serves on the Southern Maine Library District's Board of Directors. She served as a nonfiction picture book judge for the 2011 CYBILS awards and is currently a member of the Chickadee Award committee in Maine.

Louise Capizzo is a Youth Services Librarian at a public library in Scarborough, Maine. Louise has written reviews for Publisher's Weekly, AudioFile Magazine, and Kirkus Reviews and served on many committees including the Maine Cream of the Crop committee (2001-2009), the Maine Student Book Award Committee (2006-2010), the 2011 John Newbery Committee, and served as a judge for the 2011 CYBILS awards.

Together, Cathy and Louise are The Nonfiction Detectives.

"Failure Is Impossible": My Hero Susan B. Anthony

March 12 - Today's post provided by Claire Rudolf Murphy

“Failure Is Impossible”: My Hero Susan B. Anthony

(February 15, 1820 – March 13, 1906)

Susan B. Anthony.
Digital ID: 490327.
 New York Public Library

            Tomorrow is the 106th anniversary of my beloved hero Susan B. Anthony. But “Aunt Susan” belongs to all Americans throughout our history who have believed that women deserve the same rights as men. The iconic symbol of American women’s 72-year fight for suffrage, Susan B. had been dead fourteen years when the nineteenth amendment finally passed in 1920, giving all American women the right to vote. She admits to many dark nights, but in the daylight she never gave up. Her most famous quote, “Failure is impossible,” was directed to discouraged young suffragists at the 1905 national NWSA (National Women’s Suffrage Association) convention.

            Susan wasn’t present at the first Women’s Rights’ Conference in 1848. She didn’t hear Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s famous speech “A Sentiment of Rights,” which ended with a demand for women’s right to vote. But when the two women met three years later at an anti-slavery meeting in Seneca Falls, they became fast friends. http://www.rochester.edu/sba/womensfriendship.html



Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

            Over the years as I researched the history of women’s suffrage and Susan B.’s life, I have pondered how she survived the rigors of travel and campaigns on the road, all the rejections and defeats, the turncoat behavior of men in power. I now believe that it was the friendship of other women (and like-minded men) who kept her going, kept her from giving up in utter frustration. Stanton was indeed her soulmate. They soon began going door to door together, campaigning for a women’s property law in New York State. Stanton didn’t need to do much to convince Anthony to begin directing her efforts on women’s suffrage. A Quaker, Susan had been raised to believe in the equality of women. And she learned at an early age about inequality when her teacher would not let her and the other girls learn long division.

            In the 1860’s, Anthony began traveling for suffrage and soon had sisters in spirit across the land. One was Mary McHenry Keith from Berkeley, the first woman graduate of a California law school and the wife of the famous landscape painter, William Keith. My hands shook as I read correspondence between the two women while doing research in the Keith family papers at U.C. Berkeley, for my picture book Marching With Aunt Susan:Susan B. Anthony and the Fight for Women’s Suffrage, set during the 1896 California suffrage election.

             Mary McHenry Keith first met Anthony in1871 when Susan and Elizabeth Cady Stanton first visited California. Anthony and Stanton met state leaders and helped set up suffrage clubs, as they did on visits to many states. They also traveled to Yosemite Park with the Keiths, and their family friend, John Muir. Both men opposed suffrage. Eventually Anthony won over William Keith and in 1905 he painted her portrait. Anthony never changed Muir’s mind, but they were in total agreement about Yosemite. She described it as “a holy place” in a letter to her mother in 1871.

            When Anthony returned to California in 1895, in preparation for the 1896 suffrage vote, she traveled again to Yosemite. Later Muir helped make sure that one of the huge Sequoia trees in the Mariposa Grove in the national park was named after three of his giant heroes: Washington, Lincoln, and Anthony herself.

            Anthony made friends and developed true believers wherever she traveled. She stayed in California for many months leading up to the October 1896 vote. At one rally of 5000 people in Woodward Pavilion in San Francisco, she said, “Abe Lincoln once said that ‘No man is good enough to govern another man without his consent.’ Now I say into you, No man is good enough to govern any women without her consent.“

            Susan sat down to the roar of applause and one of the young suffragists said, “The applause is for you, Miss Anthony." "Nonsense," Susan B. said. “It’s for the cause, the cause!”

            Later, the young writer and suffragist wrote, “Didn’t she know that she and the cause were one?”

            Thanks to the bar owners in San Francisco, afraid women would vote in the prohibition of alcohol, the suffrage amendment went down to defeat in October 1896. Later, Anthony wrote to Mary McHenry Keith about the election. “I don't care for myself. I am used to defeat. But these dear California women who have worked so hard, how can they bear it?” But then she cajoled, “But you must not give up.”

             Susan B. never did, even when devastated by Stanton’s death in 1902. Miss “Failure is Impossible” died on March 13th, 1906, in her hometown of Rochester, New York. She never gave up and inspires us still. Every cause, every woman needs a friend like that, don’t we?

Editor's Note:
"Claire Rudolf Murphy has loved history since she was a young girl; in fact she majored in it at Santa Clara University. Murphy is the author of fourteen books for children. A former middle and high school teacher, she is a member of the faculty of Hamline University's Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing for Children and Young Adults. She lives in Washington."

If you'd like to win a copy of this book, along with an assortment of other books on women's history, please leave a comment below.  Each comment that you submit this month on this blog will give you an entry to win this prize pack of seven women's history picture books for your library, classroom, or personal collection!