Reviews

History Smashers: Women's Right to Vote by Kate Messner

mrs_bookdragon's review against another edition

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5.0

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Children's/Random House Books for Young Readers for sharing an eARC with me in exchange for an honest review. My sixth graders love history books and I am so glad that more nonfiction books are being written with their audience in mind. Kate Messner tells the history of women's fight for the right to vote in a very understanding manner. She states what has been taught, what has been left out, and what to do to make sure you get the full story in history. I liked the illustrations and I know my students will be drawn to those as well. I look forward to reading the other History Smashers books.

lostinausten's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad medium-paced

5.0

The journey to gain women the right to vote. 

I love how brutally honest this book was.  It discusses the dark and challenging journey a group of brave women went on to try and gain the right to vote. It goes into great depths about how skewed history is, for example, how we only know about a few famous suffragettes because they're the ones who literally wrote the book that provides most of the history. It also discusses how divided some of the suffrage groups were due to their racism and belief that black woman shouldn't be able to vote. It's so tragic about how not all women had each other's back and some put hate first. The end of the book got me so emotional of what women and many others have endured and have been able to overcome. 

Quote of the book: Men who settled in the US, inequality was a tradition đŸ˜‘đŸ˜¶

kari_reads's review against another edition

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4.0

Great history book showing multiple sides of historical events. 

kiperoo's review against another edition

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5.0

Loved this book. So many details I didn't know!

pumkin8610's review against another edition

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informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.5

sock_marionette's review against another edition

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adventurous informative inspiring fast-paced

5.0

arrrgh_schooling's review against another edition

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hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

4.0

thatgirlamy's review against another edition

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4.0

I LOVE this book. I can’t even count the amount of times that I felt disbelief over the smashing of what I thought to be true. Not only does learning the full history of this great battle make me appreciate my right to vote even more, but it also makes me want to learn the truth behind other events in our history.
Kate Messner’s copious amount of research and ability to make this information accessible to middle-grade students is awesome. I can’t wait to read and share more of the books in the “History Smashers” series.

ljrinaldi's review against another edition

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5.0

Quick, when did the US pass the 19th Amendment and what does that Amendment do?

Yes, it has been 100 years since the US gave the right to vote to women, but not all women, of course, no that would be far too easy.

The way I was taught about this in school, back in the 60s and 70s, the right to vote was a gift to the women for their help in World War I, as though that was their reward for all the hard work they did.

Yeah right, as though the government every gave its citizens anything without a fight.

And this book gets into the nitty gritty of it all. We learn what racists these White women were who were first fighting for the end of slavery, and then turning around and saying that Black men should not get the right to vote before they did. Nor should Black women. Nor should recent immigrants who were less desirable, and from Eastern Europe. It is amazing how so many of these great women had such hatred in them.

This book, written at the middle-grade level is very clear on what was really going on, because history should not be so cleaned up that we miss the evils that our previous generations did. This book also covers the Black women who fought for voting rights, that are often ignored. Most people know about Susan B. Anthony, but how many know About Ida B. Wells.

And for those who wonder why the women in congress often dress in white when protesting things, it is because white was the color that the women suffragists wore when protesting.

Great book. Should be used in classrooms, if we ever have gatherings of students again. Highly recommended.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

williamsalley's review against another edition

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5.0

History Smashers: Women’s Right to vote is an interesting and thought provoking look at the suffrage movement. The book does an excellent job of not painting this movement as simplistic but of showing different elements, sides and people, many of who are overlooked when this subject is taught in a history book. Love how the writers weaves in real life letters news articles and other media from this time in history that help bring to light how real the right to vote was and why it was worth fighting for.