  | Full Text Reviews: School Library Journal - 11/01/2016 Gr 2–5—Using a format similar to Roberts's previous title Founding Mothers, this overview highlights several little-known educators, writers, and reformers who made significant contributions to U.S. history. Some of the women were motivated by religious devotion, while others were influenced by powerful husbands or fathers; still others found themselves in extraordinary circumstances and rose to the occasion. With the exceptions of Sacagawea and Lucy Prince, all of the women featured are white. Goode's illustrations—rendered using quills, sepia-toned brown ink, and watercolors—reflect the historical time period with a fresh energy. Two-page portraits of individuals are interspersed with summary sections comprised of shorter entries. An author's introduction refers to the primary sources used, such as letters and diaries. Readers may pause at a poem that, though indicative of the time period, refers to Native Americans as "awful creatures" and the illustration of two-year-old Charles Adams (son of Louisa and John Quincy Adams) dressed as a "Native American chief" in a feathered headdress for a "fancy ball" when the family was living in Russia. VERDICT For libraries where Roberts's other books have been popular, this follow-up offers comparable fare.—Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst, St. Christopher's School, Richmond, VA - Copyright 2016 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission. Booklist - 11/15/2016 As she did in Founding Mothers: Remembering the Ladies (2004), a picture-book adaption of an adult best-seller, celebrated political commentator Roberts now adapts her Ladies of Liberty (2008). She teams up again with illustrator Goode to offer condensed portraits of influential women active during the half-centuries flanking the American Revolution. The war, she observes, offered the solidarity of fighting a common enemy, “but once the original thirteen states were on their own . . . the arguments started.” The biographical sketches, while not cohesive as a whole, offer brief, quirky glimpses of women trying in whatever ways they could to address the social issues of their day, among them the reflexive belittling of women’s roles. Goode’s depictions, lavished with sepia curlicues, lend a welcome levity and a certain grace to these stories of stubborn struggle, and the book as a whole is a worthwhile tool when it comes to introducing feminism to young minds. - Copyright 2016 Booklist. Loading...
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