Elizabeth Started All the Trouble

Disney Hyperion
(published 2.23.2016)
40 pages 


A True Tale
with A Cherry On Top 

 A uthor: Doreen Rappaport

and Illustrator: Matt Faulkner

C haracter: Elizabeth Cady Stanton
                    and other American women
                    who fought for women's rights

O verview from the jacket flap: 

    "She couldn't go to college
     She couldn't become a politician.
     She couldn't even vote.
     But Elizabeth Cady Stanton didn't let that stop her.
     She called on women across the nation to stand together and demand to be treated as equal to men - and that included the right to vote. It took nearly seventy-five years and generations of women fighting for their rights through words, through action and through pure determination ... for things to slowly begin to change
     With the help of these trailblazers' own words, Doreen Rappaport's engaging text, brought to life by Matt Faulkner's vibrant illustrations, shows readers just how far this revolution has come, and inspires them to keep it going!"
    
T antalizing taste: 
     
    "On January 10, 1917, the suffragists started picketing in front of the White House. In rain. In snow. In blistering heat, they stood silently with their signs.
     Angry mobs attacked them. The police did nothing to protect them, nor did they arrest any of their attackers. In the next eleven months, more than two hundred women were arrested for picketing. Almost one hundred women served time in prison. Alice Paul was sentenced to seven months and thrown into solitary confinement for two weeks with nothing to eat but bread and water. Lucy Burns and forty other women were beaten.
     Other suffragists took their places in front of the White House.
     Newspapers wrote about the brutal treatment of the women. Support for their cause grew. A judge finally ruled that the arrests were unconstitutional and ordered the women freed.
     A year after the women started picketing, President Wilson declared his support for an amendment to the Constitution giving women the right to vote.
     On August 26, 1920 the Nineteenth Amendment, granting women the right to vote, became law."

and something more: The Author's Note reminds us "what seems hard to believe today, with girls and young women asserting leadership in so many different fields, that there was a time when women had no real legal rights... In 1848 when Elizabeth Cady Stanton proposed that women have the right to vote- along with many other rights - most people considered her ideas preposterous and controversial. Women who agreed with her were mocked and slandered... They were not just fighting for their own rights; they were fighting to change history for all people. The decision to 'include' all Americans as real citizens is still unfolding in this country Remember thee women when you need courage!"
    I thought the choice of narrative of this book to include all the women, and supportive men, was a powerful way to tell the story of the suffragists. And Matt Faulkner's evocative illustrations truly bring the sacrifice, determination and courage of these women to life.