Remembering Karen Blumenthal: Feminist Author of Nonfiction for Younger Readers Dies

To name this a season of unbelievable loss doesn’t start to seize the truth. It’s not simply COVID-19. So many luminaries have died in current months, and in current weeks the kids’s literature world has seen the deaths of among the most interesting.

Karen Blumenthal, a journalist and writer of nonfiction for younger readers, died from a coronary heart assault on Monday, Might 18. For readers who love narrative nonfiction for center grade and younger grownup readers, her identify is intimately linked to that class. She was 61.

Blumenthal, alongside author-illustrator Grace Lin, additionally based the #KidLitWomen initiative in 2018. This initiative, nonetheless lively, raises consciousness of gender points and intersectionality within the kids’s literature world, from books to neighborhood.

She was additionally a fierce advocate for libraries, together with her hometown Dallas Public Library.

Her profession started as a journalist in Dallas, and as she notes on her web site, someplace alongside the best way she turned annoyed with the choices for her daughters within the realm of nonfiction for younger readers. In doing so, she blazed a path to forcing, difficult nonfiction that encourages curiosity for tweens and teenagers, and her work by no means shied away from onerous points.

Many readers who haven’t hung out on the nonfiction aspect of youth literature may not acknowledge her identify, however likelihood is they may acknowledge the matters about which she wrote. Over the course of her writing profession, she revealed 12 books on matters starting from the historical past of Title IX to Roe vs. Wade. Among the many honors her writing acquired had been the Robert F. Siebert Award for greatest informational books, a Jane Addams kids’s ebook award, and he or she was a finalist for the Younger Grownup Library Service Affiliation’s Excellence in Nonfiction Award.

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When you haven’t but had the pleasure of diving into her books, you must. Listed here are some nice locations to start with Karen Blumenthal Books.

Let Me Play: The Story of Title IX: The Legislation That Modified The Way forward for Ladies in America

Amongst Blumenthal’s earliest books was this one, and it was the primary title I learn by her. A deep dive into the historical past of the Title IX laws enacted in 1972 and the methods it impacted how ladies might take part in sports activities. What many younger readers may not know is that having ladies’ groups in faculties wasn’t at all times a given. Many didn’t imagine ladies might—or ought to—take part in sports activities like basketball or volleyball, and it was due to Title IX that new alternatives for women to participate in sports activities emerged.

What makes this ebook particularly engrossing is that it’s not solely historic. Blumenthal explored the methods Title IX has vital ramifications for all genders as much as its publication. There are nice photos, aspect bars, and sources included.

Jane Towards The World: Roe V. Wade and the Struggle for Reproductive Rights

Blumental’s newest ebook hit cabinets in February and noticed a terrific assessment within the New York Occasions.

Following the historical past resulting in the landmark Roe vs. Wade determination, the ebook takes a pointy take a look at why it’s America continues to be deeply divided over reproductive rights right this moment. Not limiting dialogue to white ladies, this ebook seems at how choices additional hurt deprived communities, together with communities of shade and the economically challenged.

Like all of her books, this one has a big quantity of again matter. It’s meticulously researched and considerate and a reminder in regards to the respect Blumental has for younger readers eager about massive matters.

Bonnie and Clyde: The Making of a Legend

What are you aware about notorious duo Bonnie and Clyde? Chances are high it’s not correct however as a substitute a sensationalized model of their lives pulled from movie.

Blumenthal presents up the historical past of each of those criminals, however she does so with the backdrop of why it’s they’ve gained such infamy and acclaim whereas committing heinous crimes. Interspersed are pictures and different artifacts, in addition to wonderful quick bios of those that had been murdered by the duo.

This ebook isn’t apologetic for the behaviors of the workforce, however, it provides large perception into what it’s that drew them to one another, the realities of their lives in small city Texas, and life extra broadly within the 1930s. None of it’s sensationalized, which elucidates the ability of Blumenthal’s writing and talent to inform a compelling, factually-driven story.

Do your self a favor and choose up among the greatest nonfiction books for younger individuals. When you learn by means of the above titles, know Blumenthal wrote fantastic nonfiction about Hillary Clinton (Hillary Rodham Clinton: A Girl Residing Historical past), Prohibition (Bootleg: Homicide, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition), Steve Jobs (Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Completely different), and even the Tommy Gun (Tommy: The Gun That Modified America).