Ablaze

The Story of America's First Female Smokejumper

A TRUE TALE WITH

A CHERRY ON TOP

Viking Books for Young Readers

(Penguin Random House)

pub. 7.1.2025

40 pages

Ages 4 - 7

Author: Jessica Lawson

   Illustrator: Sarah Gonzales

Character: Deanne Shulman

Overview:

"Deanne loved being outdoors.

With her family, she spent summers sailing the Salton Sea and backpacking the Sierra Nevada Mountains. As she grew older, her love of nature only grew. So when the heat rose each fire season and the blazes burned near and far, she noticed. Deanne knew she had to do her part in fighting the fires.

She spent years on woodland crews, clearing brush and branches that could make the fire spread, and on hotshot crews where she fought faster fires and took bigger risks, spending weeks in one-hundred-degree heat working twenty-four-hour shifts.

But what Deanne really wanted was to be a smokejumper, to jump from planes and parachute into dangerous wildfires that no truck could ever reach. To be the first line of defense. The only problem? There had never been a female smokejumper before.."

Tantalizing taste:

"She kept training,

to keep her body strong and ready.

She kept working,

joining a helicopter rappel crew

in Oregon.

She kept listening,

remembering voices of the smokejumpers

who believed in her

as much as she believed in herself."

And something more: Jessica Lawson in the Author's Note explains: "Deanne Shulman made national history by breaking into the ranks of all-male smokejumpers. Because of her efforts, the minimum weight requirement has changed to 120 pounds and the height requirement to five feet. Though Deanne often balks at being labeled a hero, she opened the door of opportuity for all women who work as wildland firefighters...

I've spent a great deal of my life in Colorado, where wildfires are an annual problem... I am incredibly grateful to people like Deanne, who fight on the front lines of wildfires to protect our livelihoods."

Fearless Benjamin

The Quaker Dwarf Who Fought Slavery

A TRUE TALE WITH

A CHERRY ON TOP

PM Press

pub. 10.14.2025

32 pages

Ages 3 - 8

Author: Michelle Markel

and Marcus Rediker

   Illustrator: Sarah Bachman

Character: Benjamin Lay

Overview:

"Fearless Benjamin tells the story of a courageous little person, only four feet tall, who fought slavery at a time when almost everyone else accepted it.

A shepherd, a sailor, and a Quaker, Benjamin Lay insisted that all people, of all nations and races around the world, were equal. Every human being—rich and poor, men and women, Black and white—deserved respect, love, and freedom.

After he protested against his fellow Quakers for enslaving others in violation of the golden rule, “do to others as you would have them do to you,” they banished him from the Quaker meeting.

When they ridiculed his small body, he stood up to their prejudice and proclaimed the truth of human decency.

He boycotted all products made by the labor of enslaved people. He spoke out bravely against cruelty and oppression. He lived a life of peace, tolerance, and brotherly love. A man far ahead of his time, he proved to be right in the long run, as Quakers and others eventually joined him in opposing human bondage."

Tantalizing taste:

"Years pass...

until one day,

a friend brings the news: The quakers will disown members who

take part in the slave trade!

Though his health has worsened, Benjamin's heart soars with joy.

His enemies have seen that he's not foolish, not inferior,

he's right! Right to use every inch of his little body

to protest the greatest wickedness in the world.

Right to dream of a world

without bondage,

right to defend his Black

brothers and sisters,

because we're put on this earth to help

one another. Through calm and stormy seas,

it's one and all."

And something more: Author's Note by Marcus Rediker explains: Benjamin Lay "believed that all good people must 'speak truth to power,' that is, speak out against injustices whenever and wherever they arise. Benjamin stood out among abolitionists for his confrontational methods of protest and his urgent insistence that slavery be abolished immediately. He based his life on universal ideals of peace, equality, and justice, which are as important to our own age as they were to his, almost three hundred years ago."

The Apprenticeship of Andrew Wyeth

Painting a Family Legacy

A TRUE TALE WITH

A CHERRY ON TOP

Christy Ottaviano Books

(Little, Brown and Company

Books for Young Readers)

pub. 10.7.2025

40 pages

Ages 5 - 9

Author and Illustrator: Gene Barretta

Character: Andrew Wyeth

Overview:

"Andrew Wyeth is one of the greatest American painters of the twentieth century. Before he found his creative voice, he was a boy growing up in an artistic family, spending his time in rural Pennsylvania and Maine.

Andy, as he was called by his family, was trained by his father, renowned artist N.C. Wyeth, but they didn’t always see eye to eye. Pa wanted his son to work in bold, bright colors, and to fill his compositions with exciting characters and places. But to Andy, the most exciting stories to paint were the ones he lived every day, that featured the familiar people and places he loved most."

Tantalizing taste:

"The paintings tell Andy and Betsy's life story in the same ways that diaries and scrapbooks do; the people and places were an intimate part of their lives ...

Andy's watercolors can be abstract and wild. As if his brush cut across the paper like a sword, splashing paint in every direction. The egg temperas can feel quiet and poetic, carefully crafted in a private meditation over the course of months."

And something more: The DId You Know? section explains: "Andy never felt the need to change his style to fit in with popular trends. That made him unpopular with certain critics who failed to see that his realistic subjects were depicted with modern, abstract compositions and painting techniques."

Lovely quote by him: "I think one's art goes as far and as deep as one's love goes."