Mary Walker Wears the Pants

The True Story of
The Doctor, Reformer,
and Civil War Hero

This post joins other Nonfiction Monday blogs hosted today
by Practically Paradise

and joins It's Monday!

What are you reading?

at Teacher Mentor Texts

Albert Whitman & Company
(pub. 3.1.2013) 32 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Cheryl Harness

     and Illustrator:  Carlo Molinari

C haracter: Mary Walker

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "Mary Edwards Walker was always an outspoken woman. She was one of America's first woman doctors, and she fought for women's rights and gave speeches around the county. But she could also make a statement just by walking down the street - wearing pants in a time when women always wore dresses!
       When the Civil War struck, she set out to serve her country and treat wounded soldiers - not as a nurse, but a a doctor. She faced extreme danger behind enemy lines and for her bravery she received the Medal of Honor, the highest award a war veteran can receive. She remains the first and only woman to ever hold this honor..."

T antalizing taste: 

    "After the war, audiences in America and abroad paid to hear Mary tell about her Civil War service and her imprisonment - and to see her in her notorious gentlemanly suit. It got her laughed at and made people angry. It caused scenes and even got her arrested! ...
    But there was more to Mary than her trousers. She lived as she believed, as an individual, fully equal and entitled to walk, breathe, and think freely, unbound by a corset or her society's expectations."

                       

and something more: I was intrigued by the statement that Mary Edwards Walker was "the first and only woman" to ever receive the Medal of Honor. The back matter explains that "in 1917, the U.S. Congress ordered 84 year-old Mary, along with 910 other honorees, to return their Medals of Honor. The rules had been changed: the medal could only be awarded to those who'd been in 'actual combat with the enemy.' ... Mary refused to give back her medal. She wore it all the remaining days of her life until she died... at the age of 86... And, on June 10, 1977, President Jimmy Carter officially restored the Medal of Honor to Dr. Mary Edwards Walker." Only fair given the injustice of taking back medals because the rules changed later!

Who Says Women Can't Be Doctors?

The Story of Elizabeth Blackwell

This post joins other Nonfiction Monday blogs hosted today
by Jean Little Library

and joins It's Monday!

What are you reading?

at Teacher Mentor Texts

Christy Ottaviano Books
(Henry Holt and Company)
(pub. 2.19.2013) 40 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Tanya Lee Stone

     and Illustrator:  Marjorie Priceman

C haracter: Elizabeth Blackwell

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "In the 1830s, when a brave and curious girl named Elizabeth Blackwell was growing up, women were supposed to be wives and mothers. Career options were few. There were certainly no female doctors. But Elizabeth refused to accept these common beliefs and would not take no for an answer.
       This inspiring story of the first female doctor in America shows how one strong-willed woman opened the doors for all the female doctors who followed."

T antalizing taste: 

    "The teachers had let the students vote on whether or not to allow Elizabeth to come. And the boys, figuring the school would never really accept a girl, said yes. They planned to turn the whole thing into a big joke.
     But the joke was on them!"

                       

and something more: As always, I'm fascinated by the Author's Note in picture book biographies. In Who Says Women Can't Be Doctors, Tanya Lee Stone explains that after Elizabeth Blackwell graduated from medical school "with the highest grades in the whole class" in 1849,  "no one would hire her to work as a doctor."  Thank goodness Elizabeth Blackwell "refused to give up. She was as stubborn as a mule. Quite rightly!" I didn't realize that her sister also became a doctor and together they started The New York Infirmary for Women and Children - "the first hospital run by women, for women."  Thanks to Tanya Lee Stone for sharing this true tale of perseverance.

Fifty Cents and a Dream

Young Booker T. Washington

This post joins other Nonfiction Monday blogs hosted today
by proseandkahn

and joins It's Monday!

What are you reading?

at Teacher Mentor Texts

Little, Brown Books
(pub. 12.4.2012) 48 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Jabari Asim

     and Illustrator:  Bryan Collier

C haracter: Booker T. Washington

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "Born into slavery, Booker T. Washington could only dream of learning to read and write. After emancipation, young Booker began a five-hundred-mile journey, mostly on foot, to Hampton Institute, taking his first of many steps toward a college degree. When he arrived, he had just fifty cents in his pocket and a dream about to come true. The former slave who once waited outside the schoolhouse would one day become a legendary educator of freedom.
        Acclaimed author Jabari Asim and celebrated artist Bryan Collier capture the hardship and the spirit of one of the most inspiring figures in American history, bringing to life Booker T. Washington's journey to learn, read, and realize a dream."

        

T antalizing taste: 

"Like any boy,
Booker longed to play, run, and jump
beneath the blue skies and bright sun.

Most of all, he longed to learn.
Booker dreamed
of making friends with words,
setting free the secrets 
that lived in books...

Trudging beneath the bleak skies
and bitter cold, he could have given up.
Then he imagined the library at Hampton,
magic and mystery lining its shelves.
From deep inside, he heard a voice
urging him to press on.
He listened, and dreamed."

                       

and something more: I thought Bryan Collier's illustration that portrays Booker T. Washington kneeling and praying is particularly powerful. The background image of trees is filled with images of slaves representing his former older neighbors who told him their stories. The power of dreams, words and communal stories!

The Extraordinary Music of Mr. Ives

The True Story of a
Famous American Composer

This post joins Nonfiction Monday

hosted today at Perogies & Gyoza

and also joins It's Monday!

What are you reading?

at Teacher Mentor Texts

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

(pub. 10.9.2012) 32 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor and illustrator: Joanne Stanbridge 

    

C haracter: Charles Ives

O verview from the publisher: 

   "The honk of a car horn. The busy clatter of footsteps. The blast of a ship's whistle. To some, these everyday sounds are noise, but to Charles Ives, a businessman by day and a composer at night, they are a symphony.

       After the attack and sinking of the Lusitania in 1915, all of New York falls silent, including Mr. Ives. But the sounds of hope wind their way into his heart, and he begins to shape them into music - extraordinary music inspired by a song overheard in the street on that dark day.

       With that spare text and tender illustrations, Joanne Stanbridge brings to life a shocking event in world history and reveals the beauty and power of artistic conviction." 

T antalizing taste: 

"All week long, Mr. Ives sits at his desk, adding and
subtracting numbers.

Now and then he has to stop working and let his
music come out. he lets it fly around the room, and
when it lands, he writes it down.

People don't listen to his music. They don't like it.
They don't understand it. They want familiar tunes
and beautiful harmonies - not songs that are as bold
as a city or as noisy as a traffic jam.

Mr. Ives writes his music down anyway. It lives inside
him like a friend, and he carries it with him wherever
he goes."

                       

and something more: Joanne Stanbridge explains, in the Author's Note, that the evening after Charles Ives learned of the torpedoing of the Lusitania, he "watched his fellow [train] commuters respond to the tragedy by [joining in the singing of his father's favorite hymn 'In the sweet bye and bye/ we shall meet on that beautiful shore']. He was deeply moved, and he shaped the experience into a musical piece that became the final movement of his Second Orchestral Set... finished in the autumn of 1915, and [performed for the first time] in 1967, thirteen years after Ives' death."
      Joanne Stanbridge shows the Lusitania tragedy with ten pages of powerful wordless illustrations. The next spread shows the "faces of the people on the train station... grim and sad, but the music [that they collectively sing] is like a promise."  The book ends with a quote from Aldous Huxley: "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."

It Jes' Happened

When Bill Traylor
Started to Draw

This post is part of Nonfiction Monday hosted today
at NC Teacher Stuff

and joins It's Monday!

What are you reading?

at Teacher Mentor Texts

Lee & Low Books 

(pub. 4.1.2012) 32 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Don Tate

     and Illustrator: R. Gregory Christie

C haracter: Bill Traylor

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "Growing up as an enslaved boy on an Alabama cotton farm, Bill Traylor worked all day in the hot fields. When slavery ended, Bill's family stayed on the farm as sharecroppers. There Bill grew to manhood, raised his own family, and cared for the land and his animals.
      By 1935 Bill was eighty-one  and all alone on his farm. So he packed his bag and moved to Montgomery, the capital of Alabama. Lonely and poor, he wandered the busy downtown streets. But deep within himself Bill had a reservoir of memories of working and living on the land, and soon those memories blossomed into pictures. Bill began to draw people, places, and animals form his earlier life, as well as scenes of the city around him.
      Today Bill Traylor is considered to be one of the most important self-taught American folk artists...It Jes' Happened is a lively tribute to this man who has enriched the world with more than twelve hundred warm, energetic, and often humorous pictures."

T antalizing taste: 

       "Bill could not contain his memories. One day in early 1939 he picked up the stub of a pencil and a piece of discarded paper and began to pour out his memories in pictures. Bill's first drawings were simple items: cats, cups, shoes, baskets. Then he began to draw human and animal forms too. He used the side of a stick to rule straight lines and shapes. Rectangles became bodies. Circles became heads and eyes. Lines became outstretched arms, hands, and legs. He filled in shapes with sketchy lines and smoothed out edges...
      And the clang-clang-clang from the nearby blacksmith's shop provided background music for Bill while he worked."

                       

and something more:  I was impressed by the wealth of information available on the Teacher Activity Guide for It Jes' Happened on Don Tate's website. I particularly enjoyed reading about Don Tate's personal and artistic connections to Bill Traylor: 

"What aspect of the man is most compelling to you, his art or his life?

"Bill Traylor’s life as a slave, sharecropper and artist are all compelling stories. Definitely not easily separated. But I was most moved and inspired by his story of becoming not only an artist, but one of the most important artists of our time..."

"In what ways do you relate to Bill Traylor? As an artist? As a father? As a man?

"When I began to research and study the life of Bill Traylor, I immediately felt a kindred spirit to the artist. With no formal training (or any artistic experience that we know of), Bill answered his calling to become an artist late in his life. I did, too. I’ve been drawing since I was old enough to hold a pencil in my hands, but I didn’t discover a love of writing until just a few years ago, well into my 40s. And like Bill, I had friends along the way who helped me develop my new found love of words...

       Words have a way of finding your past. And so do pictures, as Bill discovered. When I write, I often find myself laughing, or frowning, or even on the verge of tears, as I recall childhood events. I imagine Bill did the same thing as he drew pictures from his life as a slave, as a hardworking sharecropper, as a homeless man living on the streets."