Two Suffragists, a Kitten, and 10,000 Miles
May 23, 2016
In an account as lively as it is informative, Rockliff (Mesmerized) commemorates the centennial of a daring, dangerous, and successful publicity stunt undertaken to promote women’s voting rights. With car travel in its infancy, suffragists Nell Richardson and Alice Burke—accompanied by a black kitten, a typewriter, and a sewing machine—set off on an around-the-country automobile tour to draw attention to the women’s suffrage movement. The pair met with schoolchildren, attended parties, “dodged bullets at the Mexican border... drove on through the desert... and got lost for days” before completing a circuit around the perimeter of the United States. Hooper’s (The Iridescence of Birds) airy mixed-media illustrations use brayered swaths of color to back lively vignettes of the activists consulting maps, pushing their stuck car out of the mud, or stopping to stick a daffodil behind a horse’s ear. Various shades of the movement’s signature color, yellow, feature prominently throughout, and endnotes offer additional details on the early automobile, as well as other key figures and milestones in the women’s suffrage movement. Ages 5–8. Author’s agent: Jennifer Rofé, Andrea Brown Literary. Illustrator’s agency: Marlena Agency.