Polio Pioneer: Dr. Jonas Salk and the Polio Vaccine, written by Linda Elovitz Marshall, illustrated by Lisa Anchin

 

Linda Elovitz Marshall’s picture book biography Polio Pioneer: Dr. Jonas Salk and the Polio Vaccine is especially interesting to read, for both children and their adults, as we reflect on the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic. There have been widespread outbreaks of disease throughout history—in our country and other parts of the world—and scientists have worked to discover ways to prevent them. In the wake of the flu epidemic which killed many people in 1918, Dr. Jonas Salk was one of the doctors focusing on how to produce a vaccine that would protect people from the flu. He and Dr. Thomas Francis figured out a way: “..using inactivated flu viruses, they made a vaccine to give people’s bodies a safe ‘practice’ run.” Today’s grandparents may remember the 1950s when the disease called polio killed or disabled many people (particularly children), causing fear and requiring enormous public precautions to be taken to prevent its spread. Jonas Salk was determined to find a vaccine to prevent the devastating disease. Examining different kinds of polio viruses, he and his team used inactive viruses to make an effective vaccine, testing it in multiple ways. It worked, and the polio vaccine became part of standard medical care, greatly diminishing the threat of the disease. Dr. Salk continued working to fight devastating illnesses, founding the Salk Institute of Biological Studies in California. Today, medical specialists continue to strive there to discover cures to many diseases—including cancer, Alzheimers and diabetes. In Polio Pioneer: Dr. Jonas Salk and the Polio Vaccine, engaging illustrations by Lisa Anchin invite readers to meet Jonas Salk as a perceptive, cerebral youngster, following him through medical school to the founding of the Salk Institute. In the process, readers get a glimpse of the scientific process and the impact a person’s determination can have on our world. Ages 5-9. Alfred A. Knopf / Random House Children’s Books, 2020.

Further information about Jonas Salk and the Salk Institute can be found here.

Exquisite: The Poetry and Life of Gwendolyn Brooks, by Suzanne Slade, illustrated by Cozbi A. Cabrera

Growing up, Gwendolyn Brooks did not have a fancy house but her home had a big bookshelf and her father recited poetry aloud in his deep, resonant voice. Inspired by the cadence, Gwendolyn loved memorizing poems and began writing her own when she was just seven. “She carefully strung words together like elegant jewels in perfect meter and rhyme.” Her poems were, from the beginning, about ordinary life—and about feelings. She filled notebooks, and even had a poem published in a magazine. Times were hard during the Great Depression, but Gwendolyn kept writing. She wrote throughout her high school years, and read classic poetry and wrote throughout her college years. A wife and mother in her South Side Chicago neighborhood, she tried her hand with new forms and new rhythms, capturing the stories she saw around her. A Street in Bronzeville was published in 1945, and Brooks continued to write the stories she felt inside herself—“stories of hardship and hope”—in poetry. In 1950, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Annie Allen, becoming the first Black person to receive this outstanding recognition. Of course, Brooks continued to write and share her work with audiences; she served as the Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968 and the Poet Laureat Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1985. In the picture book biography Exquisite: The Poetry and Life of Gwendolyn Brooks, Suzanne Slade offers a spirited, inspiring portrait of this gifted poet. Illustrator Cozbi A. Cabrera renders the energy and dedication at the heart of Brooks’ life in wonderful paintings that draw readers in beautifully. Ages 6-10. Abrams Books for Young Readers, New York, 2020.

An excellent companion to the above biography is Gwendolyn Brooks’ Bronzeville Boys and Girls, richly illustrated by Faith Ringgold. This collection of thirty-four poems captures both the particular qualities of Brooks’ Chicago neighborhood and the universal experiences of childhood. Ages 4-8. Harpercollins, 2015.

 

Joey: The Story of Joe Biden, by Jill Biden, illustrated by Amy June Bates; Kamala Harris: Rooted in Justice, by Nikki Grimes, illustrated by Laura Freeman

                                                     

The picture book biography Joey: The Story of Joe Biden is an inviting and loving introduction to the President of the United States, focusing on his childhood and the values instilled by his family and teachers. Energetic and competitive, Joey ran with the ball, literally and figuratively, as he navigated the playing fields and backyards of his Pennsylvania hometown. Outgoing and generous-spirited, he was a “people person” alert to the dynamics of his family and community, a trait that would serve him well as he grew up and moved into the worlds of high school, college and beyond. Biden entered public service at age twenty-nine, becoming a six-term United States Senator from Delaware and subsequently serving as Vice President of the United States for eight years alongside President Obama. In November, 2019, he was elected President of the United States; his chosen running mate was Kamala Harris. Author Dr. Jill Biden, with Kathleen Krull, draws on numerous family stories and happenings to provide understanding of the challenges Biden faced over the years and his significant achievements, honed by values of loyalty, determination, and truth-telling. In his address presenting Joe Biden the Medal of Freedom, Barack Obama stated: “Bravery resides in every heart, and yours is fierce and clear.” Amy June Bates’s illustrations are as engaging as Biden’s story. Combined with family photos, they provide a charming and informative introduction to our new president. A comprehensive timeline, sources and “Bidenisms” complete the book. Ages 4 up. Paula Wiseman Books / Simon & Schuster, 2020. 

Author Nikki Grimes’s picture book Kamala Harris: Rooted in Justice is a rich description of a young girl growing to adulthood in the context of social awareness and activism. Grimes places the biographical narrative in the context of fictional child Eve’s conversation with her mother, seamlessly introducing the meaning of Harris’s choices as she navigated the path to becoming Vice President of the United States. As a young child in a stroller, Harris attended civil rights marches with her parents. As an elementary school student in her diverse Berkley, CA, community, she heard different languages and participated in after-school programs in her black working-class neighborhood. Kamala heard James Baldwin speak and Maya Angelou read; she listened to Nina Simone sing, internalizing what it meant to be “young, gifted and black.” Moving to Montreal for her mother’s new job brought valuable experiences, then Kamala returned to the United States to attend Howard University. Having had her confidence supported by the adults in her life, Harris was not shy about taking leadership positions throughout college, internships and law school, eventually becoming the first black woman Attorney General of California and the second black woman in the U. S. Senate. In Grimes’s words: “Each time she answered a call for help, Kamala proved her family’s legacy of public service was alive and well in her.” Laura Freeman illustrates Harris's story beautifully. In January, 2020, Harris became the first woman—and the first woman of color­, the daughter of immigrants—to serve as Vice President of the United States. Ages 4 up. Atheneum Books for Young Readers / Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, 2020

Wilma’s Way Home: The Life of Wilma Mankiller, by Doreen Rappaport, illustrated by Linda Kukuk

It could be hard to decide which of Wilma Mankiller’s accomplishments is the most outstanding. Was it when she became the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation? Was it years earlier when as an adult she returned to San Francisco (a city in which she felt a foreigner as a child when her family relocated there from her Cherokee homelands) and participated in Native activism for the first time? One might say it was when she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton. Or perhaps when she finished college and began work in Cherokee rural communities, listening to the people there, understanding that they themselves would know what was most needed to improve their lives. In Wilma’s Way Home: The Life of Wilma Mankiller by Doreen Rappaport, readers will experience the power of Mankiller’s belief in the Cherokee concept of Gadugi with which she was raised in her Oklahoma childhood—that of helping one another. Details of Wilma’s life are woven together with this common thread; she had her own setbacks with illness and accident yet consistently reached out to those around her. She engaged communities in determining their own destinies and applied her energy to finding supportive resources. Mankiller was both a Cherokee leader and a woman leader, providing guideposts of persistence, positive action and problem-solving all along her life path. In this picture book biography, illustrations by Choctaw artist Linda Kukuk bring episodes in Wilma’s life to readers with engaging immediacy. Endnotes by the author and illustrator and a timeline of important events complete this informative and inspiring book. Ages 4-9. Disney / Hyperion, New York NY, 2019.

 

For further exploration:

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/wilma-mankiller

 

Infinite Hope: A Black Artist's Journey from World War II to Peace, by Ashley Bryan

It wasn’t until forty years after the end of World War II that artist and poet Ashley Bryan began to share his experience serving with the 502^nd Port Battalion, one of four Black units of Company C in the United States Army. He was drafted at the age of nineteen, in the spring of 1943 while a student at Cooper Union in New York City. Bryan had arrived at this fine arts school through the unwavering encouragement of his parents and teachers—and the blind scholarship test that judged artistry alone, not race or ethnicity. Bryan’s tour of duty in the Army began with basic training in Massachusetts; in simulated drills, he received an unsettling first glimpse of what wartime—and serving in a segregated army—meant. He discovered that his passion for observing and recording what he saw and felt could sustain him through the horrific realities of the next three years. He kept numerous sketches in his knapsack and penned letters to loved ones. “I had to draw. It was the only way to keep my humanity.” In Infinite Hope: A Black Artist’s Journey from World War II to Peace, Bryan's recollections are conveyed through drawings and personal notes as well as documentary photos—vividly personal and universal at the same time. To readers for whom soldiering is unfamiliar, this beautifully-realized memoir offers penetrating insights to war tempered by the instincts of a resolutely generous man who shared his energy, perseverance and art with those around him. Decades later, in the 1980s, Ashley Bryan uncovered sketches of his time in foxholes on Normandy Beach at the end of days spent unloading cargo ships, guarding German prisoners of war, viewing the destruction of cities in France and Belgium, obtaining berths for the men in his detail to head home to the States. Yet more recently, in his home on an island off the coast of Maine with his garden, easel, hand-crafted puppets and sea-glass windows nearby, he returned to those drawings, bringing color and rhythm to the dark experience of war. Ages 10-15; Atheneum / Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, 2019.

Ashley Bryan has received numerous awards for his expressive and celebratory picture books for young people, many of which reflect African American culture. Readers can learn more about Mr. Bryan by visiting the Ashley Bryan Center at https://ashleybryancenter.org. 

Marching for Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don't You Grow Weary, by Elizabeth Partridge

Marching for Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don’t You Grow Weary, by Elizabeth Partridge, focuses on the role of young people in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches advocating for the right to vote for African-American citizens. It was a difficult time in Selma and throughout the South; Jim Crow laws stood in the way of many people’s civil rights. In 1963, ten-year-old Joanne Blackmon accompanied her grandmother, who intended to register to vote, to the county courthouse. They were denied admittance and subsequently arrested, the first of numerous times over the following two years. Protests crystallized in the spring of 1965. The constancy of the community in protesting, the brutal events at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and the participation of Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis and thousands of others led to President Lyndon Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act into law on August 6, 1965. Documentary photos and electrifying essays bring mature readers directly into this time in history. Ages 10-15. 

Viking Books for Young Readers / Penguin Random House, 2009. 

Bold & Brave: Ten Heroes Who Won Women the Right to Vote, by Kirsten Gillibrand, art by Maira Kalman

“Who taught my mom and her mom and her mom to be bold and brave so they could teach me and you? I can tell you who. The women who came before them—women who faced unimaginable challenges.” Thus writes author Kirsten Gillibrand as she begins recounting the contributions ten women made to the fight for women’s right to vote over the centuries. Some names are familiar, such as Susan B. Anthony and Harriet Tubman; other suffragists may be unfamiliar to readers, such as Mary Church Terrell and Inez Milholland. Gillibrand notes the changes that brave women have wrought over many years, citing a personal example: her grandmother was born at a time when women could not vote, and today Gillibrand is a United States senator, helping to make the laws that govern our nation. Each biographical profile is succinct yet captures the essence of each person’s pursuit; the common thread is the drive to bring into law women’s right to vote. The path to suffrage was winding, and very possibly readers will want to explore the journeys of other activists who kept working, into the 20^th century, to ensure all citizens could cast their votes. While the 19^th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution certifying women’s right to vote was ratified in 1920, it wasn’t until 1965 that the Voting Rights Act secured African American citizens—men and women—their right to vote in all states across the nation. The vital importance of the forward energy demonstrated by so many people in history is brought to the present by Gillibrand when she notes that the Women’s March in Washington DC in January 2017 was a clear expression that women and men will continue to advocate for what they believe in. She encourages readers to “Be bold and be brave. The future is yours to make.” A summary of additional women who helped shape our nation comes at the end, providing a wonderful sendoff to readers as they envision their own future roles. The colorful, passionate artwork of Maira Kalman appears on every page, including the endpapers of the book, capturing not only memorable cameos of ten women but also a unique scene from each of their lives. The picture book Bold & Brave: Ten Heroes Who Won Women the Right to Vote is an excellent introduction to women’s suffrage and the importance of ongoing advocacy for a strong democracy. Ages 6 up. Alfred A. Knopf / Random House Children’s Books, 2018.