Inspire Your Young Ones with Dare to Question
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (and probably dozens of more times after that) - I love getting my hands on a good picture book biography and learning about the fascinating life of someone I’ve never heard of before. I love sharing them with my kids, and I love learning from them myself. Well, it’s happened again. This new picture book is called Dare to Question, and the person in question that I’ve never heard of is Carrie Chapman Catt.
Everybody has heard of Susan B. Anthony before - one of the co-founders of the National Woman Suffrage Association. But it was many decades later that women in the United States finally won the right to vote, and it was Carrie Chapman Catt who was leading the (newly-named) National American Woman Suffrage Association at the time of victory. In fact, this book makes it clear that Anthony taught Catt everything she knew - and even asked her to take over the lead.
Disclosure: This is a sponsored article from The Children’s Book Review and Jasmine A. Stirling. All thoughts, opinions, and recommendations remain our own.
It was 1920 when women in the United States finally were granted the right to vote with the Nineteenth Amendment. But it’s in the details of this historic vote that you discover the type of tension and excitement that good stories are made of. Of course a simple story celebrating the life of a hard-working leader who won her historic fight for women’s rights would suffice - but it can’t be denied that the made-for-Hollywood, nail-biting ending makes for good entertainment.
Jasmine A. Stirling does a great job highlighting the impossibly close vote, and the too-good-to-be-true letter from a mother that was the tipping point for granting half the nation the right to have their voices heard. Thirty-six states had to agree for the amendment to pass, but only thirty-five had done so. It all came down to Tennessee, where everyone, even lawmakers, was actually walking around wearing yellow or red roses to show off their opinions - like they were some sort of gang members in a Shakespearean drama.
The icing on the cake is of course that one single lawmaker changed his mind at the very last moment - despite being in the wrong rose color gang. High drama! But it gets better. The story is that he had a letter from his own mother in his pocket, in which she encourages him to vote yes. Who knows how long it would have taken to get an amendment if they would have failed in 1920, but it’s quite remarkable that twenty-seven million citizens got the right to vote and it all boiled down to a single person changing their vote because he did not want to disappoint his mother. What a story.
It reminds me of another incredible fact, and it shocks me every single time I recall it. It’s unfathomable to me that it took until 1974 for the Equal Credit Opportunity Act to pass - when women were finally allowed to open their own bank account without a signature from their husband. Isn’t that bonkers? That fact seems to shock people of all ages, even those that were alive during that time. Was it really that recently?
Naturally I love sharing that kind of bonkers information with my children too. It’s good to hear a bit of shameful history every now and then and be repulsed by it. It serves two great functions. First of all, you have the tried-and-true statement that we need to learn our history to avoid repeating it. And, second of all, it’s incredibly beneficial for little ones to be inspired by historical figures who had the bravery to fight against the establishment.
It takes a lot of bravery to fight against the establishment for what you believe is right. And that’s a big part of what I hope my kids take from books like this one. The easy part is seeing how absurd it sounds that women weren’t allowed to vote, which leads to almost instantaneous confusion and empathy in my kids. At the surface level it’s easy for kids to root for the tenacious and brave hero Carrie Chapman Catt as she fights a very obvious villain of the past.
The hard part is reflecting on and understanding just how brave she was to fight against the societal status quo. Or how brave the fighters for civil rights and gay rights were. That’s harder to really understand, so books like Dare to Question are a very useful tool in that conversation. And it’s very aptly named as well, isn’t it? Sometimes we simply need to question the status quo. And how powerful of a concept is that for kids to ruminate on?
The book also does an interesting and thoughtful job addressing the concept of change itself - comparing it to the small steps of evolution. But if we’re using evolution as a metaphor, it still takes those remarkable moments - like a mutation - to bring about change. And in society those remarkable moments are created by people. Passionate people still must act during remarkable moments in history to bring about change.
I love the details about Carrie Chapman Catt in this book that bring her to life. Of course, every detail of her life was new to me, but I like that there’s room in this picture book for a bit more than her fight for suffrage. I enjoy seeing everything - from when she was an inquisitive child wondering if germs had personalities, to when she is grown and forced to hide her relationship with the woman she loved.
And I appreciate the strategic theory behind Carrie’s campaign for the suffrage movement - which grew significantly because she made it the thing. With bonfires, fireworks, ballroom parties, and dances, they made the movement creative and fun, appealing to the masses and people’s FOMO. It strikes me as a very clever and funny campaign strategy - fighting against the societal status quo by appealing to everyone’s fear of missing out on fun, high-status events they wanted to belong to.
It’s also wonderfully appropriate that a big turning point in the suffrage fight was how women kept things running at home during World War I - taking on jobs women had never done before. It just so happened that it was particularly hard at that time in history for men to come home from war and vote against their wives, sisters, cousins, and mothers.
Dare to Question isn’t just a great picture book biography, it’s a great history book for kids. It’s our only picture book about the women’s suffrage movement, and that’s an important addition to our shelves. This is a great opportunity to teach both my son and my daughter about this huge moment in our far-too-recent history. Because who knows what status quo they’ll need the bravery to question during their lifetime.
Giveaway!
Enter for the chance to win a personalized, signed copy of Dare To Question: Carrie Chapman Catt’s Voice for the Vote, a set of 5 Girl Power Enamel pins, and a $100 Amazon gift card!
One (1) grand prize winner receives:
-A personalized, signed copy of Dare To Question: Carrie Chapman Catt's Voice for the Vote
-A set of 5 Girl Power Enamel pins
-A $100 Amazon gift card!
Four (4) winners receive:
-A personalized, signed copy of Dare To Question: Carrie Chapman Catt's Voice for the Vote
Have you read Dare to Question yet? What do you (or the kids) think about it? Let us know in the comments!
