Woman Who Faced Amazing Challenges & Succeeded

March 29 - Today's post contributed by Alyson Beecher

Woman Who Faced Amazing Challenges & Succeeded

by Alyson Beecher

If you were asked to name a woman in history who made a significant contribution and who also had a disability of some type, who would you name? Most people would probably name Helen Keller. However, I was curious about other women who had made or were making a difference and who also had some form of a disability. So, off to Google I went.

My simple search produced some familiar names and some names that were new to me. Helen Keller was obviously on the list but so was Harriet Tubman, and Frida Kahlo. Each of these women have numerous biographies written about them in both picture book and long-form. The famous photographer, Dorothea Lange is well known for her photography but lesser known for the limp she grew up with as a result of polio when she was a child. Wilma Mankiller, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, has a chapter in a picture book celebrating famous woman and her work with the Cherokee Nation, but did you know she also served in this position while having a rare form of muscular dystrophy? Really, just a chapter in a picture book?

However, I learned about some other woman who had made notable contributions to their communities and countries and yet, little were written about them.  Jhamak Ghimire who has severe cerebral palsy and considered the “Helen Keller of Nepal” has nothing written about her in the United States, except for her own work of poetry. Judy Neumann, and Harilyn Rousso have had significant careers and lives advocating for individuals with disabilities and yet despite their life's work would not be easily recognized by most teachers and children.

After serving on the Schneider Family Book Award Jury (a children’s and young adult book award committee of the American Library Association) for the past few years, I have read a lot of books featuring individuals with special needs. However, in the category for young children, with the exception of books about Helen Keller, there were no books portraying the lives of any of these other amazing woman and the work that they have done while also living with additional challenges. Do we have a book gap? I would certainly say yes.

Though this is not a comprehensive list by any means, I would like to highlight the lives of just a few of the incredible woman who embody the spirit and essence that surrounds Women’s History Month and who are also powerful role models for our young readers who may be empowered to dream beyond their special needs because of these amazing women.

Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom by Carole Boston Weatherford; Illustrated by Kadir Nelson

Despite what I had read on Harriet Tubman in the past, it had primarily focused on her leadership and active role in assisting slaves to escape to freedom. Somehow, I had missed the fact that Tubman suffered from epilepsy along with severe headaches and narcolepsy as a result of a head injury she suffered when she was young at the hands of another slave’s overseer.

Frida by Jonah Winter; Illustrated by Ana Juan

Viva Frida by Yuyi Morales 

One of the things that have always struck me is how Frida Kahlo was able to utilize her pain and life experiences to produce so many amazing pieces of art. As a child, she contracted polio and was left with a limp, then at 18 she was in a serious bus accident, which left her in chronic pain. Kahlo lived a colorful live with her marriage to artist Diego Rivera and her political activism.

Dorothea Lange by Mike Venezia

As a child, Dorothea Lange contracted polio which left her with a limp due to a weakened right leg and foot. However, she did not let this or later health issues impede her work as a photographer and publisher. It was her goal to use her photography to bring attention to injustices, which she hoped would result in a change of action in people. Her depression era photography of rural hardship became her best known work.

Amelia to Zora: Twenty-six Women Who Changed the World by Cynthia Chin-Lee; Illustrated by Megan Halsey, Sean Addy 

Photo of Wilma Mankiller taken at the 2001 Cherokee National Holiday. Photo by Phil Konstantin

Wilma Mankiller was a lifetime activist and advocate for the rights of Native Americans and women. In 1985, she became the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation During her term as Principal Chief, she worked to improve health care, education and government for native americans. After a nearly fatal car crash, Mankiller was diagnosed with a form of muscular dystrophy.

Harilyn Rousso

Harilyn Rousso is not only a disability rights activist but also an activist for the rights of women with disabilities. Highly educated, Rousso has utilized her personal experiences, education, and passions to establish a number of organizations to address issues of gender and disability.

Judith Heumann, Photo from U.S. State Department

As a toddler, Judy Heumann developed polio which left her needing to use a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Heumann has spent her life advocating for the rights of those with disabilities. After college, she fought against New York State in court to be granted the right teach elementary school as an individual in a wheelchair. She later served as the Assistant Secretary of Special Education during the Clinton Administration. Currently, she works as an International Disability Rights Special Advisor advocating human rights legislation for children and adults with special needs.

"Jhamakawarded" by Madan Puraskar org . Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jhamakawarded.jpg#/media/File:Jhamakawarded.jpg

Though Jhamak Ghimire may not be able to speak or use her hands due to cerebral palsy, she has still managed to write poetry and be recognized in her native land of Nepal as an award winning poet.

Helen’s Big World: The Life of Helen Keller by Doreen Rappaport; Illustrated by Matt Tavares

Of course, I couldn’t leave out Helen Keller. Likely of the most recognized influential women who also happened to have a disability, Keller showed that despite being both blind and deaf that you can learn and you can make a difference.

What strikes me about each of these women is how hard they must have worked. Each one of these women shows us what is possible despite our personal limitations. When I think of the headaches that Harriet Tubman experienced or the chronic pain of Frida Kahlo, I am in awe. Pain is hard and yet, neither of these women allowed it to stop them from accomplishing what they were meant to do.

Mankiller, Heumann, and Rousso dedicated their lives to advocating for others. When I look at the accomplishments of these women, I almost feel like an underachiever.  They have not allowed what might be seen by others as limitations to limit them.

Lange, Kahlo, and Ghimire have used their experiences to enhance their artistic expression. Ghimire is particularly inspiring in that her own country as well as her body would have left her without a voice and yet through her writing she has found that voice.

Next time, I find myself thinking I am unable to do something, I need to remind myself how much each of these women have contributed to their communities and even the world by what they were able to accomplish while facing incredible challenges.


Alyson Beecher is an educator, book geek and literacy advocate with over 20 years of experience in education.  Currently, she is the K-8 Literacy Specialist for the Pasadena Unified School District in Pasadena, CA.  Alyson has served as the Chair of the ALA 2015 Schneider Family Book Award Jury and was an Elementary/Middle Grade Nonfiction second round judge for the CYBILS. She can be found on twitter @alybee930 or through her blog www.kidlitfrenzy.com

The First American Women Illustrators

March 30 - Today's post contributed by Amy June Bates

The First American Women Illustrators

 by Amy June Bates

I suppose it is inappropriate to start this by writing about a man, because it starts with one Howard Pyle, the father of American Illustration.  He is responsible for teaching and honing the skills of the first generation of American illustrators, male and female, through the turn of the twentieth century. Of his 110 students, 40 were women, a ratio that stood out in its day. Notable among that number were Jessie Wilcox Smith, Violet Oakley, Elizabeth Shippen Green, and Sarah Stilwell. Howard Pyle provided them with opportunity by sharing his knowledge and connections based on merit not gender.

Those first women illustrators paved a remarkable path. They built on the opportunities Pyle provided to them with hard hard work. Hard work. They made it possible. They made illustration a career for women. I’ve recently been reading about them in Red Rose Girls, by Alice Carter. It has made me wonder what it felt like to be a woman blazing a trail by making her living in a heretofore man’s profession.

Back to Howard Pyle again. Although he started out a fairly open-minded instructor, he became increasingly frustrated by female students who chose to get married instead of pursuing a career in illustration. He was quoted as saying, “Once a woman is married, that is the end of her.” Although his classes started out with equal numbers of men and women, eventually he focused mostly on his male students. He made no secret of his feelings, and his charismatic opinions bore a great weight and influence on his students. Still, his female students bore much affection for him, though he supposedly secretly harbored a great irritation at their continual knitting in his class.  Probably the lowered female numbers put a considerable pressure on the female students who remained. Jessie Wilcox Smith, Violet Oakley  and Elizabeth Shippen Green vowed never to marry or have children.

Jessie Wilcox Smith said many times that motherhood was “the most sacred occupation,” an attitude which sounds a little patronizing when it is expressed by one who has chosen not to pursue it. It might sound better if it weren’t an opinion usually offered by men in a way that tends to imprison women on a pedestal. She also said, “A women’s sphere is as sharply defined as a man’s, if she elects to be a housewife and mother- that is her sphere and no other. Circumstance may, but volition may not lead her from it. If  on other hand she elects to go into business or the arts, she must sacrifice motherhood in order to fill successfully her chosen sphere.” In case you think her opinions unnecessarily strict, look back at the handful of brilliant woman artists of this time period, an era in which women began to be renowned for their artistic achievements and career in their lifetime: Mary Cassatt, Beatrix Potter, Kate Greenaway, Cecilia Beaux, Rosie O’Neil, Sarah Stilwell, Elizabeth Shippen Green, and the list could continue.  Of these luminescent women, none had children and only one ever married. Maybe Jessie was right. Maybe it was self preservation. Maybe they didn’t want to “end,” as Howard Pyle ominously implied they might.  Curiously, the most popular and famous work of these women, or at least the jobs they were continually hired to do, all feature children or maternal subject matter. I tend to think that this is partly a bias in the market. Perhaps mothers and children were an “appropriate” subject matter for women. 

I had never realized that these turn-of-the-century women artists chose not to marry or have children at least in part as a sacrifice to their careers. And if Jessie Wilcox Smith’s opinions were harsh, well, what she said was true in her world. A woman could have a husband and children, or possibly a career, but not both.  However these women illustrators and artists also chose to define themselves differently than women had in the past. They were not the wife of… mother of…They were the successes that they made of themselves.

I wanted to write about the women above because of their huge mark on my world. I am an illustrator. It makes me proud to be able to say that, and I have worked hard to earn it. But it is in part due to those women that I have my career. I had many wonderful teachers who inspired me and encouraged me. I also had two (male) teachers who told me that I would end up married with children and would never amount to anything more. Thank goodness I also live in a time when I don’t have to take remarks like that seriously. Those teachers didn’t hold my future in their hands.  

I have read the accounts of other women illustrators over the last one hundred years. Women who eventually could choose a family and a career, but could expect little help from any man inside the house. I can say now that I do have children and a career and a husband who is as invested in my career as I am in his. While I am grateful, and looking back makes me feel even more so, I don’t feel like it is too much to ask of the world. I would sort of like to thumb my nose at Howard Pyle, just a little. 

The way we live now is a result of the efforts of hard working people who have changed the world. Their struggles unite our present with our past.  It is possible to be  inspired by and also in disagreement with some of the people we idolize. And it remains important to question the status quo so that we can continue to improve the world for our daughters and sons. Right?

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A selection of books illustrated by Amy June Bates

Editor's Note:

This very modest biography is taken from Amy June Bates' website:

When Amy was a kid she loved to draw and read. She spent the time that she wasn't reading and drawing trying to keep her six brothers and sisters from drawing on her pictures and losing her place in whatever book she was reading. She loved the mountains quite a bit.

 She grew up and learned to draw a lot better.

 She currently lives in Pennsylvania with her three children and husband. She reads and she draws quite a bit.

Her blog is Amy June Bates Drawing a Blank 

The Value of Picture Book Biographies

March 30 - Today’s post by Jennifer Brown of Twenty by Jenny and Shelf Awareness

The Value of Picture Book Biographies

By Jennifer M. Brown

A librarian friend I deeply respect said to me recently that she wasn’t sure what purpose a picture-book biography serves. I immediately thought of many ways to celebrate and defend it as a form, but the most compelling reason is that a picture book biography done well will lead youngest readers to find out more about the person at its heart. And during women’s history month, here are a few favorites to bring youngest readers on board.

Georgia in Hawaii: When Georgia O’Keeffe Painted What She Pleased by Amy Novesky, illustrated by Yuyi Morales (Harcourt/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $16.99 hardcover, 9780152054205) is an excellent example of a picture book biography that may well lead young readers to further investigation. Novesky chooses one episode in Georgia O’Keeffe’s career—when the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (later known as Dole) brings her to Hawaii to create two paintings of a pineapple—and she refuses to paint the fruit on their terms. She wants to live among the pineapple workers; the company won’t let her. So she travels the islands and paints “what she pleases.” In the end, back in New York, she does paint a pineapple, but she paints it her way. Novesky convincingly chronicles O’Keeffe’s change of heart, and the illustrations by Morales capture the essence of O’Keeffe’s trademark combination of close observations of nature while making them entirely her own. O’Keeffe’s paintings make us see flowers and sky—and yes, a pineapple—differently, and Morales evokes that same feeling.

Children who respond to Georgia in Hawaii, may then pick up My Name Is Georgia by Jeanette Winter (Sandpiper/HMH), which shows the artist’s early leanings toward her career from childhood, when she traced pictures out of books in her local library in Wisconsin. The picture book follows her through to adulthood, and Winter peppers the narrative with quotes from the artist as spare as her artwork. Young people can easily find a role model in O’Keeffe—the way she trusted her early calling and stuck with it her entire life. It makes a strong statement next to her steadfast stand with the pineapple company in the previous book.

The picture-book biography that prompted the remark from my friend was Jazz Age Josephine by Jonah Winter, illustrated by Marjorie Priceman (Atheneum/S&S, $16.99, 9781416961239), and while I acknowledge that Josephine Baker’s sensual dances as an adult might be a bit more than a child could handle, Winter does an extraordinary job of conveying her early experimentation in dance as well as how the race riots of her St. Louis childhood prompted her flight to France and planted the seeds for her involvement in the French Resistance and the Civil Rights Movement. Without giving these influences short shrift or delivering them with a heavy hand, Winter creates a portrait of a playful, inventive and principled young woman, and Marjorie Priceman’s kinetic illustrations convey Josephine’s charisma and talent.

One of the most fortuitous examples of a picture-book biography leading to further study is the collaboration between Pam Muñoz Ryan and Brian Selznick, Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride (Scholastic). Ryan and Selznick encapsulate in one evening’s adventure two women whose strength and fearlessness broke open gender boundaries during their lifetime. After First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt invites “First Lady of the Air” Amelia Earhart to dinner at the White House, Earhart repays her hostess’s kindness by offering her a night flight over the capital. The book gets across a sense of why these women were such icons and also why they became such good friends. (Those who wish to read more about Earhart or Roosevelt may turn to Candace Fleming’s Amelia Lost: The Life and Disappearance of Amelia Earhart,Schwartz & Wade/Random House; and Fleming’s Our Eleanor: A Scrapbook Look at Eleanor Roosevelt’s Remarkable Life, Atheneum/S&S.)

That book led to further exploration by Ryan and Selznick, and another episode in Eleanor Roosevelt’s life, When Marian Sang: The True Recital of Marian Anderson(Scholastic). An African-American opera singer at a time when America was still in the throes of segregation, Marian Anderson took the stage all over the world—except when she returned to her homeland. When the singer was denied entry to Constitution Hall, Eleanor Roosevelt stepped in and arranged for Anderson to perform on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The notes at the back of this picture book let young readers know how Amelia and Eleanor led to the picture-book collaboration about Marian Anderson and Eleanor. What a power of example for where curious minds and creativity can lead.

Editor’s Note:

Jennifer M. Brown is the children’s editor for Shelf Awareness, an e-newsletter for the book trade that recently launched an edition aimed at consumers. She also writes for Kirkus Reviews and School Library Journal’s Curriculum Connections. Jenny is the founder of Twenty by Jenny, a Web site that helps families build their children’s libraries one book at a time.

Role Models

March 10 - Today's post provided by Trina Robbins

ROLE MODELS

by Trina Robbins

            I grew up without a role model.  My mother, a second grade schoolteacher, taught me to read at the age of four, and I’m forever grateful to her for opening an entire world to me.  Without what she did, I might not have become the writer I am.  But I never wanted to be like her, struggling to support an invalid husband (my father had Parkinson’s Disease) and two ungrateful daughters on a teacher’s salary.

            Growing up, I devoured Nancy Drew, and when I discovered comics I read every issue of Wonder Woman and Mary Marvel.  Mary Marvel was a teenaged girl who could fly, and she was as strong as Superman.  But I knew they weren’t real. Much as I’d have loved to be raised by Amazons or to utter a magic word that would give me super-powers, that wasn’t going to happen. Girls were supposed to grow up, marry, and have kids.  I wanted more.

            Soon, although I never abandoned Wonder Woman and Mary Marvel,  I started adding more sophisticated comics to my pile.  Many of them came from a unique comics publisher, Fiction House. At a time when too many female characters in comics were simply the hero’s girlfriend and existed only to be rescued from the bad guy, the women in Fiction House comics were strong and beautiful, and in command of their fate.  They were war nurses, aviatrixes, counter-spies, girl detectives, jungle girls. They didn’t need a guy to rescue them.  They had no super-powers and they didn’t need them. They showed me that an ordinary (well, maybe not that ordinary!) human woman could be powerful.

            What I didn’t know at the time was that many of the artists who drew these strong, gorgeous women were women.  And that the artist who drew my favorite of all the heroines, a dashing Brazilian counterspy named Senorita Rio, and who signed the stories “L. Renee”, was actually Lily Renee, the best of all the women who drew for Fiction House.

Cover of Fight Comics #47, published by Fiction House in December 1946.
Art by Lily Renée

            Comic books had been a male-dominated industry from their beginnings, but during the war, as in every other industry, the young men who drew the comics enlisted or were drafted, and as in every other industry, women took their places.  And Fiction House hired more women cartoonists than any of the other companies.  Even after the war they kept the women on, until the company folded around 1954.

            Fast forward about thirty years, and I’m a comics artist and writer, sick and tired of hearing from male editors that women never drew comics and girls never read them.  So what had I been with my pile of comics, chopped liver?  In 1985 I wrote my first history of women cartoonists, showing that women have been drawing comics since there were comics to draw, and that they were damn good at it.  That was when my research uncovered the true gender of “L. Renee.”

            As the years went by I wrote my second and my third history of women cartoonists.  Some of the women I wrote about found my books, found themselves inside, and contacted me, and I had more to tell about them in the next book.  I kept hoping Lily would show up.  I had given up hope that she was still on this planet when, in 2005, I received an email from her granddaughter; she knew her grandmother had drawn comics, so she looked her name up on the internet, and kept coming up with my name!  And Lily was still with us!

            I phoned her -- she had a wonderful Viennese accent -- and shortly after that, went to New York to visit and interview her.  The story she had to tell me, of a Jewish Viennese teenager escaping the Nazis via Kindertransport in 1939, her adventures in England during the Blitz, of being accused of being an enemy alien, and finally being reunited with her parents who had escaped to America, were like one of her comics.  And that young Lily, who had to flee the Nazis, finally got her revenge on paper when she drew glamorous and spunky heroines beating the Nazis, was the perfect happy ending.  Of course I knew I had to tell her story in a comic.

            Six years later, the graphic novel “Lily Renee, Escape Artist,” was written, drawn, and published, and I flew to New York to present talks and signings with Lily.  In her eighties, she is still as glamorous as the women she drew.  She stole the show at each of our appearances, and I didn’t mind.  And, to my great relief, she liked the book!

            It’s a bit late, but I finally have a role model.

Editor's Note:

"Writer and feminist herstorian Trina Robbins has been writing books, comics, and graphic novels for over 30 years."

Women in Science - Trailblazers Before the 20th Century

March 8 - Today's post is provided by Patricia Stohr-Hunt of The Miss Rumphius Effect

Women in Science – Trailblazers Before the 20^th Century

Imagine a young girl enchanted with the world around her, spending her time outside. She nurtures and releases wounded animals, digs in the dirt searching for fossils and dinosaur bones, collects rocks, presses interesting leaves and flowers, watches the sky at night, and spends every spring at the farm down the road hoping to see a new calf or lamb make its way into the world. She has a family that encourages her pursuits. What she lacks are female role models. In the male-dominated world of science, her role models are Cousteau, Darwin, Mendel, Galileo, Einstein, Edison, and others.

That girl grew up to love and teach science, despite finding no one beyond Marie Curie to ignite her imagination. Today you can inspire young people with stories of women whose contributions in science span centuries and disciplines.

Hypatia (355-370 A.D. (estimated) – 415 A.D.)

The daughter of Theon, a mathematician, philosopher, and the last director of the Library at Alexandria, Hypatia was educated in the ways of many young men of her time and was one of the first women to study math, science, and philosophy. She is considered the first woman to make a substantial contribution to the development of mathematics, having written a treatise on conic sections. She is credited with the charting of celestial bodies and the invention of the hydrometer, though there is some disagreement about whether or not she was the first inventor of the astrolabe. OF NUMBERS AND STARS: THE STORY OF HYPATIA, written by D. Anne Love and illustrated by Pamela Paparone, provides a nice overview of the time and place in which Hypatia lived. The artwork evokes both Egyptian and Greek styles and nicely incorporates images that reflect the subjects Hypatia studied. This is a carefully crafted picture book biography on a woman that little is known of. Despite this, her story is one that will inspire. Included are an author's note and bibliography, as well as some additional notes about mathematics.


Maria Merian (1647-1717)
Poets and artists must have a bit of scientist in them, as they must closely observe the world around them in order to share it from their unique perspective. Maria Merian was an artist and scientist who studied plants and animals in their natural habitat and then captured them in her art. Not only did she document the flora and fauna in her native Germany, but in 1699 she also traveled to South America where she studied and sketched plants and animals unlike any others she had seen. SUMMER BIRDS: THE BUTTERFLIES OF MARIA MERIAN , written by Margarita Engle and illustrated by Julie Paschkis, is based on the true story of how Merian secretly observed the life cycle of summer birds (a medieval name for butterflies) and documented it in her paintings. Focusing on her young life, this book shows readers how curiosity at a young age can lead to a lifelong pursuit.

You can view a few of the paintings that were part of the 2008 Getty Center exhibition entitled Maria Sibylla Merian & Daughters: Women of Art and Science.
http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/merian/slideshow.html
You can view more of Merian’s paintings at the site for the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
http://www.nmwa.org/collection/portfolio.asp?LinkID=588

Mary Anning (1749-1847)
Often called “the greatest fossil hunter ever known,” Mary Anning made finds that challenged the way scientists viewed the processes by which the natural world changed. Mary began fossil hunting at a young age, having been taught by her father to look for and to clean fossils. The family sold these treasures to vacationers who came to Lyme in the summer. Even after the death of her father and through the destitute years that followed, Mary continued to hunt for fossils.

There have been several terrific picture book biographies written about this remarkable woman. RARE TREASURE: MARY ANNING AND HER REMARKABLE DISCOVERIES, written and illustrated by Don Brown, is an appealing look at Mary’s life from beginning to end. The text and watercolor illustrations combine to provide an insightful picture of a woman whose curiosity led her to spend her lifetime searching for fossils and studying everything she could about them. Mary didn’t just find fossils; she tried to understand them and wanted to know what they told us about our world.

MARY ANNING AND THE SEA DRAGON, written by Jeannine Atkins and illustrated by Michael Dooling, focuses on one year during Mary’s life when she worked tirelessly to unearth an ichthyosaur fossil. This same attention to Mary Anning’s childhood fossil hunting is at the heart of STONE GIRL, BONE GIRL: THE STORY OF MARY ANNING, written by Laurence Anholt and illustrated by Sheila Moxley. Finally, for something a bit different, THE FOSSIL GIRL: MARY ANNING'S DINOSAUR DISCOVERY, written and illustrated by Catherine Brighton, tells the story of Anning's discoveries in the form of a graphic novel.

You can see images of some of the most well known fossils Marry Anning found at the site of the Natural History Museum.
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/galleries/green-zone/fossil-marine-reptiles/index.html

The Lyme Regis Museum web site has information about Mary Anning and displays some of her fossil finds.
http://www.lymeregismuseum.co.uk/exhibitions-and-events/in-the-museum/mary-anning

Maria Mitchell (1818-1889)

Known as the first female astronomer in the US, Maria Mitchell was a curious child. She was educated in school, though she was also tutored by her father. His influence on her life and learning was tremendous. Together they calculated the position of their home by observing a solar eclipse. They also acquired astronomical equipment and conducted obervations of the skies. One night she was observing the sky from the roof of the bank where her father worked when she spotted a small object that did not appear on her sky charts. Maria discovered a comet! MARIA’S COMET, written by Deborah Hopkinson and illustrated by Deborah Lanino, is a fictional picture book that imagines how Maria's interest in astronomy developed while she was a young girl. Narrated by Maria, readers will meet a girl who helps with her siblings (eight of them!), mends clothes, and engages in other chores typical for a girl of her era. However, Maria’s heart is clearly with the sky. The text is poetic and Hopkinson manages to include references to all kinds of astronomy known at the time, including planets, constellations, and comets.

You can download a reading guide for MARIA’S COMET from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
http://americanhistory.si.edu/ourstory/pdf/telescope/telescope_comet.pdf

The Maria Mitchell Association web site has a wealth of biographical information about Mitchell specifically written for students.

http://www.mariamitchell.org/mitchell-house/for-students/

Marie Curie (1867-1934)
Most know Marie Curie as the winner of two Nobel prizes, the first a shared award in physics (1903) for work on radioactivity, and the second in chemistry (1911) for the discovery of the elements radium and polonium. Her constant exposure to radiation and subsequent death are also well known. What is most fascinating, however, is the story of the woman behind these accomplishments. It is the accomplished biography that can make readers appreciate her love of learning and her incredible humanity, while also highlighting the feats that make her so well known. There are several terrific books that do just that.
SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING: MARIE CURIE AND RADIUM, written by Carla Killough McClafferty, is well-researched, highly detailed and well-documented. It’s everything good nonfiction should be. The icing on the cake is the fact that McClafferty spins the facts into a gripping tale. Readers won’t want to put this one down.

MARIE CURIE: THE WOMAN WHO CHANGED THE COURSE OF SCIENCE, written by Philip Steele, is also a stunning biography. Steele not only tells Curie’s story in an engaging fashion, but her provides readers with a clear picture of what life in Europe was like from the 1860s to the 1930s. Additionally, there are many photographs and sidebars (informational boxes), as well as a helpful timeline that runs across the bottom of every double page spread.

BORROWED NAMES: POEMS ABOUT LAURA INGALLS WILDER, MADAM C.J. WALKER, MARIE CURIE, AND THEIR DAUGHTERS, written by Jeannine Atkins, tells the story of three daughters moving from childhood to adulthood. Each of the three sections of the book begins with a bit of backstory about the mother and daughter and where their story in poems begins. The poems convey a real sense of person, and after reading them you feel you really know these women in an intimate way. The section on the Curie’s focuses on Marie’s relationship with Irène, who often worked by her mother’s side.  

The American Institute of Physics Center for History of Physics has a very nice biography and online exhibit on Marie Curie and the science of radioactivity.
http://www.aip.org/history/curie/

The Christian Science Monitor has a very interesting article entitled Marie Curie: Why her papers are still radioactive. It really brings home the dangers of the materials Curie spent her life studying.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2011/1107/Marie-Curie-Why-her-papers-are-still-radioactive

Women scientists of the 20^th century had some pretty big shoulders to stand on. They and we owe a huge debt of gratitude to these amazing women. In reading their biographies, a number of common traits appear. All of these women loved learning and had an incredible thirst for knowledge. They were tenacious and often overcame great obstacles to follow their dreams. They have blazed trails that we would do well to follow. After reading about them, I’m ready to pick up their mantle and carry on. Are you?

Visit me at The Miss Rumphius Effect tomorrow for the second half of this post, Women in Science of the 20^th Century. I’ll be writing about Rachel Carson, Mary Leakey, Jane Goodall, Sylvia Earle, and Wangari Maathai.

Editor's Note:
Patricia Stohr-Hunt has, in her lifetime, "worked as a boat hand on a private yacht, assembled physics equipment in a factory, and even tested dog biscuitsfor fat content."  She "now hold(s) the two best jobs in the world--one is teacher and the other is mom." In between work and home she manages "to find a few minutes to blog about teaching and books" she loves.

Wanda Gág, Millions of Cats, and One Well-Drawn Life

March 22 - Today's post provided by Janice Floyd Durante at Books of Wonder and Wisdom

Wanda Gág, Millions of Cats, and One Well-Drawn Life

Wanda Gág (1893-1946) chased the “ineffable joy of creation” throughout her life. Along the way, she established a reputation as both a premier printmaker and as the mother of the American picture book. Her ground-breaking classic, Millions of Cats (Coward-McCann, 1928) reflects her vibrant, indomitable approach to life and to art.

“I must put my whole being into the drawing of pictures,” she wrote in her diaries, published as Growing Pains (Coward-McCann, 1940). In Millions of Cats, her first and most influential picture book, Gág (rhymes with “fog”) drew on her childhood store of Old World folktales. She told a delightfully simple story of a very old woman who wishes she and her very old husband had a cat to keep them company. Her husband sets out and finds not one but … you know, of course, all about that furry multitude.

With Millions of Cats, Gág opened up new aesthetic possibilities in children’s literature. She was the first to employ the two-page spread, now an integral part of the picture book. The quirky little book won the 1929 John Newbery Honor (the Caldecott did not yet exist). Its effect, however, continues today. In Wanda Gág: A Life of Art and Stories, Karen Nelson Hoyle wrote, “Wanda Gág  set in motion the American picture book movement with her Millions of Cats. Her significant contribution was integrating the cover, endpapers, illustrations, and story into a complete whole.” 

Of the many striking things about Millions of Cats, it is the sense of energy and movement that most pleases this reader. The text roams parallel to the hills where the old man wanders. On one delightful two-page spread she depicts the man with his hands crammed with kittens, with one camped on his head, others popping up on the burgeoning hills, and more and more forming a long, curvy trail. Not only do the cats look lively, but also the clouds, the hills, the trees, even the fat puffs of smoke that come from the chimney or from the old man’s pipe. Everything seems to vibrate with life.

Gág often pondered the connection between art and life in her diaries. “I used drawing as an instrument to study life,” she wrote. She was both enthralled and mystified by her times of intense artistic focus, describing them as a “wild sort of ecstasy,” “a fierce joy,” and as a maelstrom. While she had many friends, she decided early on that neither peers nor poverty nor romantic love would distract her from her goal of becoming an artist.

The remarkable journey from Gág’s childhood home of New Ulm, MN, to New York City and beyond is beautifully rendered for children in the picture-book biography Wanda Gág : The Girl Who Lived to Draw by Deborah Kogan Ray. The author/illustrator uses evocative excerpts from Gág’s diary to great effect, as she weaves in highlights of the family history, with its roots in the German-speaking area of Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic). Ray’s lively paintings exude color and a full range of emotions. She shows the seven imaginative Gág children drawing and putting on their own plays, inspired by the folktales told by their imaginative parents. Ray also shows a quiet Wanda in the attic studio, observing her father, “happy in his soul” as he allowed himself the freedom to paint for pleasure on Sundays. Then there is the somber death-bed scene, with Wanda holding her father’s hands as he urges her to pursue art: “What Papa couldn’t do, Wanda will have to finish.”

His death from tuberculosis, when Wanda was just 15, might have precluded any chance that the eldest daughter would become an artist. Instead, her resolve strengthened. To reach her goal, she would have to battle poverty, pressure from her provincial neighbors to work as a store clerk, her friends’ conventional expectations for marriage, as well as sexism in the art world and in society at large. Not only did Wanda and all her siblings finish high school, Wanda won a scholarship to study art, first in St. Paul, Minnesota, then at the prestigious Art Students League in New York City.

In that exciting art-filled city, Gág’s expressive drawings, prints, and watercolors earned her coveted one-artist exhibits at the Weyhe Gallery. That’s where a children’s book editor, taken with her vivid images, asked Wanda if she had ever considered writing children’s books. In fact, Wanda had a box full of ideas for children’s stories.

Gág’s success with Millions of Cats led to ten other inventive children’s books, ranging from The ABC Bunny, the first alphabet book to tell a story; to her still-beloved picture books The Funny Thing, Gone is Gone, Nothing at All, and Snippy and Snappy, as well as Tales from Grimm, which she translated from her native German. As she lay dying of lung cancer (although Wanda did not smoke, her longtime partner, whom she married at age 50, did), she continued to work on More Tales from Grimm, published posthumously.

“My drawing moods are the only things I ever wish to be ruled by,” she wrote when she was a 21-year-old art student. Wanda Gág  made her wish come true. And for that, millions and billions and trillions of readers can rejoice.

Suggested Discussion Questions

for Wanda Gág: The Girl Who Lived to Draw

Teachers and librarians can use Ray’s picture-book biography (for ages 8-10) to enhance children’s appreciation of creativity, community, and perseverance.

1.  Hold up the two-page spread showing the children acting out a play. Ask, “How did the family encourage the children’s creativity?”

2.  Wanda spoke only German until she went to school. How do you think it would feel to enter a school where you were expected to learn a new language?

3.  What did Wanda mean when she said her father was “happy in his soul” while painting in the attic? What kinds of activities make you feel this way?

4.  Why did Papa urge Wanda to look at the world in her own way?

5.  At bedtime, Wanda’s mom read her Grimms’ fairy tales. What kinds of books do you like to hear read aloud?

6.  Wanda wrote that many of her childhood memories centered on the “Grandma folks.” How did those experiences with older relatives contribute to her development as a person or as an artist?

7.  Wanda described her “drawing fits.” Have you ever been so engaged in an activity that you lost track of time? What were you doing? How did you feel?

8.  Why do you think Papa told Wanda she would have to finish what he could not do? What effect did this have on her goals?

9.  Why did the neighbors urge Wanda to quit school and get a job? Do you think you would have resisted, as Wanda did? Why or why not?

10.  How did Wanda manage to help her family survive while at the same time developing her artistic talent?

11.  Wanda’s motto became “Draw to live, and live to draw.” What did she mean by that?

12.  How did the art school and the culture of New York City assist Wanda in developing her own artistic style?

13.  Wanda was able to take advantage of the opportunity to create children’s books partly because she had a “Notebook of Ideas.” Do you have some kind of notebook or journal where you keep some of your ideas? What do you enjoy about that?

14.  How did Papa’s advice that Wanda see the world in her own way help her to succeed? What other qualities helped her? 

Works Cited

Gág, Wanda. Growing Pains: Diaries and Drawings for the Years 1908-1917. New York: Coward-McCann, 1940. Reprint, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.

Hoyle, Karen Nelson. Wanda Gág : A Life of Art and Stories. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 2009.

Ray, Deborah Kogan. Wanda Gág : The Girl Who Lived to Draw. Viking, 2008. (for ages 7-10)

     Children’s Books by Wanda Gág

The ABC Bunny. New York: Coward-McCann, 1933. Reprint, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.

The Funny Thing. New York: Coward-McCann, 1929. Reprint, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.

Gone is Gone, or The Story of a Man Who Wanted to Do Housework. New York: Coward-McCann, 1935. Reprint, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.

Growing Pains: Diaries and Drawings for the Years 1908-1917. New York: Coward-McCann, 1940. Reprint, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984. (for ages 12+)

Millions of Cats. New York: Coward-McCann, 1928.

More Tales from Grimm. New York: Coward-McCann, 1947.

Nothing at All. New York: Coward-McCann, 1941. Reprint, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.

Snippy and Snappy. New York: Coward-McCann, 1931. Reprint, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.

Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs. New York: Coward-McCann, 1938. Reprint, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.

Tales from Grimm. New York: Coward-McCann, 1936.

Three Gay Tales from Grimm. New York: Coward-McCann, 1943.

Further Reading for Children

Swain, Gwenyth. Wanda Gág: Storybook Artist. St. Paul, MN: Borealis, an imprint of the Minnesota Historical Society Press. (Ages 9-12)

O’Hara, Megan, ed. The Girlhood Diary of Wanda Gág, 1908-1909: Portrait of a Young Artist. Mankato, MN: Blue Earth/Capstone, 2001. (Ages 8-12)

           

Further Reading for Adults

“The Classic Tales of Wanda Gag.” http://www.upress.umn.edu/Gag/Gagindex.html  The University of Minnesota Press provides summaries, images, and descriptions of the Wanda Gág books it reprints and sells.

“Minnesota Storytime: Reading Guides.” http://www.minnesotahumanities.org/resources/MNMillionsofCats.pdf Tips on using “Millions of Cats” in the classroom or library.

Winnan, Audur H. Wanda Gág: A Catalogue Raisonne of the Prints. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993. Reprint, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. Fascinating details on Gág’s artistic development and legacy, complemented by a wide range of photographs of her work.