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 (Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Beecher Preachers, 1994, etc.) vividly relates how Stanton, early on, felt the sting of injustice in being a girl, and that even her own father was sorry she was not a boy. As an adult, she was drawn into an iconoclastic circle of friends that included Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony. By making clear that many of the early supporters of rights for women were also strongly anti-slavery, 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. (Biography. 10- 14)
