RUTH BADER GINSBERG: Supreme Court Justice

After being one of the first women to attend Harvard Law and graduating first in her Columbia Law School class (after following her husband to New York City in 1958), Ruth Bader Ginsburg went looking for a job. ""I don't hire women,"" said a man whose position would someday be her own, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. He added: ""Does she wear skirts? I can't stand girls in pants."" She received the same response from every court and law firm she visited. She finally took a job as a legal secretary. Roberts carefully explains the role of the Supreme Court in the judicial system and throws in some interesting details about the obstacles Ginsburg has faced throughout her life and career (a textbook on property law used in the 1960s stated that ""land, like woman, was meant to be possessed""). The story of the determined Ginsburg is the stuff of legends. Solid, like a junior encyclopedia entry, but not special.