PPBF: Around America To Win The Vote

Today's Perfect Picture Book Friday pick



Votes for Women!
Around America to Win the Vote,
by Mara Rockliff and Hadley Hooper

Around America To Win the Vote
Written by Mara Rockliff
Illustrated by Hadley Hooper

Candlewick, 2016
K-3, 40 pp


Themes:
Historical, Biography, Nonfiction, Women


Opening:
       On April 6, 1916, a little yellow car set out from New York City.
It carried:
tools,
spare parts,
a teeny-tiny typewriter,
an itsy-bitsy sewing machine,
one stout leather trunk bursting with useful things,
two smiling women,
and a wee black kitten with a yellow ribbon tied around its neck.
       The taller woman was Nell Richardson. The smaller one was Alice Burke. Together, they planned to drive all the way around America. It was a great big country, but they had a great big cause.


Synopsis:
During the early twentieth century, two women drove across the country and back again in "The Golden Flier." They held rallies and passed the word for women's suffrage. These plucky women fixed their own car, mended their own clothes, avoided hazards and bandits, and earned the respect of a nation. They believed so strongly that women had both a duty and a right to vote, that they devoted six months to their daring adventure. This is the story of that amazing trip.


What I Love:
This book is written in an engaging style. The text is as spunky as the women it tells about. The art is vibrant and fun, as Nell and Alice were, whether at a formal party or stuck in a mud puddle in a back-woods back road. Full of facts and interesting tidbits (many from the ladies' own journals.) Plus Back matter and notes. Perfect for an election year.


Bonus: 
 

Vintage votes poster by H. Dallas,
 turned into a coloring page, thanks to Sinergia

1. Read all about it on the Smithsonian web page. More info on Nell Richardson and her gorgeous car from America on the Move. Plus additional photos at the Library of Congress. Young readers can make a list of items they might need for a cross country road trip.

2. Visit the National Women's History Museum or read from the website concerning the suffragettes.

3. Just for fun, check out the sheet music and artifacts on the Women's Suffrage Memorabilia website. Have students write their own rally song.

4. University of Houston has a digital copy of a suffragette flyer, listing reasons women thought they ought to have the right to vote.

5. School Library Journal offers a huge list of books and suggestions for Demystifying an Election Year.

6. Check out these and more Perfect Picture Books at your local library.

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Have you reviewed a Perfect Picture Book along this theme? Please leave the link in the comments below. Thanks!

Check out all the recommended titles for Perfect Picture Book Friday
for Friday, October 14, 2016 available on Susanna Leonard Hill's blog.