You Want Women to Vote, Lizzie Stanton?

by Jean Fritz

Overview

This biography of Elizabeth Cady Stanton is as spirited as the women's rights pioneer herself.

Who says women shouldn't speak in public? And why can't they vote? These are questions Elizabeth Cady Stanton grew up asking herself. Her father believed that girls didn't count as much as boys, and her own husband once got so embarrassed when she spoke at a convention that he left town. Luckily Lizzie wasn't one to let society stop her from fighting for equality for everyone. And though she didn't live long enough to see women get to vote, our entire country benefited from her fight for women's rights.
"Fritz imparts not just a sense of Stanton's accomplishments but a picture of the greater society Stanton strove to change. Highly entertaining and enlightening." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"This objective depiction of Stanton's life and times makes readers feel invested in her struggle." — School Library Journal (starred review)

"An accessible, fascinating portrait." — The Horn Book

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101078303
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	02/15/1999
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	96
Lexile:	870L (what's this?)
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Jean Fritz, the Newbery Honor-winning author of Homesick, is best known for her engaging and enlightening nonfiction for young readers, including What's the Big Idea, Ben Franklin?, And Then What Happened, Paul Revere?, and Shh! We're Writing the Constitution. She was honored with the Knickerbocker Award for Juvenile Literature by the New York State Library Association, and won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for her career contribution to American children's literature.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"The early women's rights and suffrage advocate Elizabeth Cady Stanton is the focus of a readable, accessible biography. She comes alive for middle graders in a narrative with almost novelistic pacing, a dose of humor, and an affectionate point of view. Fritz leads readers almost effortlessly through such important events as the Seneca Falls (New York) Convention in 1848, the impact of the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation, and Reconstruction and the postCivil War 19th century. Lively, enjoyable fare from a reliable and expert storyteller." —Kirkus Reviews

Editorial Reviews

Fritz maintains her reputation for fresh and lively historical writing with this biography of the 19th-century American feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), imparting to her readers not just a sense of Stanton's accomplishments but a picture of the greater society Stanton strove to change. Stanton is first introduced in girlhood, mastering task after task in a futile effort to prove to her father that she was ``just as good as any boy.'' Brightly told anecdotes tell of the adult Stanton's excitement in rousing audiences to concern for women's rights; Fritz sets the background by outlining the prevailing social sanctions against women speaking in public. She explores Stanton's responsibilities in raising seven children; her unconventional marriage; her long collaboration with Susan B. Anthony; her attempts to cope with dissension within the women's rights movement. Throughout, the author stresses Stanton's pluck and verve, quoting Stanton's sharp comebacks to ``apple-headed'' men or showing Stanton during the statewide celebration of her 80th birthday, using the attention to excoriate the church for its backwardness (``Susan must have groaned,'' Fritz conjectures). Highly entertaining and enlightening. Ages 10-14. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 3-6-Fritz applies her gift for creating engaging, thorough historical literature to a larger-than-life historical figure. Stanton was a radical among radicals, and this objective depiction of her life and times, as well as her work for women's rights, makes readers feel invested in her struggle. An appealing, full-page black-and-white drawing illustrates each chapter. For students who need a biography, this title should fly off the shelves with a minimum of booktalking. And it is so lively that it is equally suitable for leisure reading.-Rebecca O'Connell, Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

School Library Journal

r. 47. This is Fritz at her ebullient best, writing a historical biography that weaves together the life of a spirited leader and the fight for her cause. In this case, the fight is for women's suffrage. Without fictionalization, Fritz re-creates Stanton's decisive, impatient, outspoken personality. "Elizabeth had never heard of anything so ridiculous" is a constant refrain from Stanton's childhood on through her domestic life and her long years of politics. The friendship between Stanton and the suffragist leader Susan B. Anthony is drawn with immediacy and zest, their closeness and their arguments, their work together and their failures. Stanton fought with the abolitionists who wanted to separate black rights and women's suffrage. She "lit into" the churches for being so backward. Yet there's no caricature; running throughout is a restrained sense of her sorrow that she could never please her father because she was not a boy. The description of her last speech in 1892 is an eloquent fusion of the personal and the political: "In the end, she said, everybody, men and women, were alone. They were responsible for themselves; no one could represent them." As usual, Fritz provides a bibliography but no further documentation of sources. Illustrations by DyAnne DiSalvo-Ryan not seen in galley.

Hazel Rochman

Praise for You Want Women to Vote, Lizzie Stanton?

★ "Fritz imparts not just a sense of Stanton's accomplishments but a picture of the greater society Stanton strove to change .... Highly entertaining and enlightening." -Publishers Weekly (starred review) 

★"This is Fritz at her ebullient best." -Booklist (starred review)

★"This objective depiction of [Stanton's] life and times ... makes readers feel invested in her struggle." -School library Journal (starred review) 

From the Publisher