Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 06/01/2016 K-Gr 3—This picture book biography introduces young readers to Alice Paul, the suffragist and women's rights activist. Readers will learn of Paul's fierce efforts to win the right to vote for women, including putting together a parade in Washington, DC, that upstaged the incoming president, Woodrow Wilson; organizing protesters outside the White House; and directly confronting President Wilson on the matter of women's suffrage. The author connects these efforts ("making mischief") to Paul's wild youth, a time when she sneaked candy, chased chickens, and threw mud balls. Watercolor and color pencil illustrations support this spirited view with lively movement and color as she is shown leading a parade of 8,000 women, sitting in President Wilson's office and looking him right in the eye, protesting outside the White House gate, and even being hauled off to jail by the police for refusing to leave the grounds. All of these efforts pay off when Wilson finally decides to support women's right to vote. A final illustration shows the triumphant Paul on her way to vote in the 1920 election. VERDICT This is an engaging introduction to an important and often neglected historical figure. Older readers can find additional information in Ann Bausum's With Courage and Cloth.—Myra Zarnowski, City University of New York - Copyright 2016 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Bulletin for the Center... - 07/01/2016 Although women’s rights advocates are well represented within the picture-book collection, suffragist Alice Paul can’t claim as high a page count as the better-known Elizabeth Cady Stanton or Amelia Bloomer. This narrowly focused account explores Paul’s targeted confrontations with President Woodrow Wilson, from the time she upstages his 1914 arrival in Washington (who wouldn’t rather watch a protest parade than a train arrival?) until 1918, when Wilson, with some serious nudging by his daughter Margaret, agrees to put the weight of his office behind women’s right to vote. The lighthearted mixed-media illustrations undercuts the seriousness of the effort somewhat, but Robbins makes clear for a quite young audience through both main narration and endnote that there were very specific obstacles that had to be overcome to extend the vote to women (Congressional action, and the ratification of a Constitutional Amendment), and winning the endorsement of the president was a vital first step. Librarians and educators seeking accessible materials to draw pre-primary children into election year topics will want to consider this. EB - Copyright 2016 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.