Becoming RBG by Debbie Levy & Art by Whitney Gardner (2019)

A huge thank you to all of my friends and family for your congratulatory words last week! I am so thrilled to have Tina Schwartz at The Purcell Agency representing my chapter book manuscripts! Please encourage your fellow friends, especially teachers, to subscribe to my blog!

I like to focus most of my book reviews on recent publications, but when I came across this middle grade graphic novel about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (published 2019) in my local library, I knew I had to read and share it! I recommend this book for 7th grade through high school. I taught the U.S. Constitution to 7th graders for about eight years. It may be helpful to have some Constitution and Supreme Court background knowledge before reading this, though it isn’t completely necessary. This book gives a perfect description of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life and it does a nice job covering the various gender discrimination laws she challenged. She was such a fierce advocate for women’s rights. We owe so much to her. 

Head: In her early years, working as a lawyer for the ACLU, Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s approach to build the case for gender equality under the law was methodical. This graphic novel describes many of her important cases.

Heart: Ruth Bader Ginsburg graduated at the top of her class from Columbia Law. She made the law review at Columbia and Harvard, yet no one wanted to hire her because she was a woman AND she had a child! She devoted most of her life to fighting this gender discrimination. In a time where women are experiencing an erosion of rights, it is important that we honor, celebrate and DEFEND the legacy of RBG.