Mary Who Wrote Frankenstein
Linda Bailey, illustrated by Jùlia Sardá
Tundra Books
Ages 5-8
Counting on Katherine: How Katherine Johnson Saved Apollo 13
Helaine Becker, illustrated by Dow Phumiruk
Henry Holt & Co.
Ages 5-9
Walking in the City with Jane: A Story of Jane Jacobs
Susan Hughes, illustrated by Valérie Boivin
Kids Can Press
Ages 6-9
Bernie Goedhart
Children’s picture books tend to be aimed at the preschool to early-reader set — generally ages three to seven — but the genre encompasses a wide range of art and literature that speaks to an equally wide range of ages, especially when we look at books of a biographical nature. Some new titles merit a look not just from the very young, but also from those of more advanced years.
Mary Who Wrote Frankenstein, by Toronto’s Linda Bailey, for example, is an eye-catching volume of special interest during this season, with Halloween approaching. Stunningly illustrated by Barcelona’s Jùlia Sardá, it tells the story of young Mary, who would sit by her mother’s grave to read and dream. Her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, was an early feminist who died 11 days after Mary’s birth in 1797. When her father remarried, the girl took a dislike to her stepmother and, at the age of 14, was shipped off to Scotland to live with strangers. Two years later, when she returned to her parental home, the problems with her stepmother continued and Mary ran away with a young poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, accompanied by her stepsister, Claire.
Two years later they travelled to Switzerland, where — in the company of another poet, Lord Byron, and his friend John Polidori, a doctor — they found themselves in a large house on a wildly stormy night, telling ghost stories and trying to outdo one another. Mary was unable to come up with a story idea until days later, when she started writing what became one of the most famous Gothic tales of all time: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. She was 18 years old.
Bailey’s text is accessible to even the very young, and focuses on Mary as a child and teenager. But a four-page author’s note at the end of the book includes information and details that will fascinate readers of all ages and might prompt them to seek out not only Mary Shelley’s writing, but also that of her mother.
Counting on Katherine: How Katherine Johnson Saved Apollo 13, by Toronto’s Helaine Becker and illustrated by Colorado’s Dow Phumiruk, another biographical picture book, introduces children to a little girl who loved learning — and especially loved numbers. Born in 1918, she skipped several grades and was ready for high school at the age of 10. But her home town’s high school didn’t admit black students of any age (the author tells us “America was legally segregated by race” at the time).
Luckily, Katherine had supportive parents and her father moved the family to a town with a black high school. She graduated at 14 and finished college at 18. She became a school teacher, but longed to be a research mathematician. In 1953, she got a job as a “computer” at Langley Aeronautical Laboratory and five years later became an aerospace technologist when her team joined NASA. (Adults reading this book aloud to a child may experience a sense of déjà vu: If they saw the 2016 film Hidden Figures, they will have already encountered Katherine Johnson’s remarkable story.)
Girls and boys alike are bound to applaud Katherine’s accomplishments, but girls especially will take heart at the way she applied herself to mathematics and followed her passion, even when others stood in her way or gave her the tasks men found too boring. In the end, she helped save the crew of Apollo 13 with her skills — even though she always said it was a team effort.
Walking in the City with Jane, by Toronto’s Susan Hughes, a fictional account based on fact, tells the story of Jane Jacobs, a woman who took a lively interest in her surroundings while she lived in New York City (and, years later, in Toronto), noticing things most other people overlooked, and eventually realizing that the city is something of an ecosystem itself and should be cared for and kept healthy.
She was not afraid to stand in the way of development and what some considered civic progress if it meant saving a neighbourhood from destruction. Appealingly illustrated by Quebec City’s Valérie Boivin, this picture book can show children that everyone has a voice and can make a difference. Today, 12 years after her death, Jane Jacobs continues to leave a mark on cities around the world where local citizens conduct tours of their neighbourhoods in her name. Visit janeswalk.org orjanejacobswalk.org to learn more.