Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Well, folks, it’s been one week since Election Day, and if you think I’m going there even a tiny bit–you’re out of your mind.  What I AM going to do, however, is wholeheartedly campaign for this trio of books on women’s suffrage that my girls and I have been reading.  Picture books are an incredible resource for anyone looking to give their children a sense of history–and an appreciation for freedoms that (for many of us) are less than a century old.

(Note:  My girls were possibly more outraged that women once weren’t allowed to vote than appreciative that they can now, which isn’t shocking.  And let me make VERY clear that I would have read these with my son if he were old enough to sit for the longer, serious picture books, but he’s four.  That’s SO not happening right now.)

1)  Doreen Rappaport’s Elizabeth Started All the Trouble has the broadest scope of the trio; it begins with Abigail Adams reminding her husband to “remember the ladies” before heading to Seneca Falls and the first Women’s Rights Convention–and beyond.

2)  Miss Paul and the President:  The Creative Campaign for Women’s Right to Vote focuses on Alice Paul and her efforts with President Woodrow Wilson.  Nancy Zhang’s illustrations are full of humor.

3)  I knew absolutely nothing about the events in Around America to Win the Vote:  Two Suffragists, a Kitten, and 10,000 Miles, which made it all the more fascinating.  Nell Richardson and Alice Burke really did travel around the country, and their methods for winning people to their cause made me smile.  This is as fun as it is informative.

And there you have it, folks–three very different books about (more or less) the same topic.  Read these with your kids.  It’s never a bad thing to be able to look back and see how far we’ve come!