Writing in the perspective of former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as she looks back on the arc of her life, Brad Meltzer makes a remarkably strong case that Ginsburg was a trailblazer for equality, someone who thought about how she wanted the world to be for her children and herself. Beginning in the 1930s, Ginsburg asserted her discomfort about the limited expectations for girls. She figured out that pursuing a legal career was her best chance to change unfair practices for all. Her parents’ values, combined with their belief in education and libraries, helped make that possible for her — at a time when neither women nor Jews were welcome in the field of law.
Humor and vignettes in a comics style give young readers a “show, don’t tell” connection to Ruth as a human being. Christopher Eliopoulos depicts a short, expressive Ruth in her black judge’s gown and her iconic large glasses and jabots. He shows her playing on her Brooklyn street, bringing ice cream to a Jewish orphanage with her mother on her birthday, and raising children of her own. In one scene, she stands on three books on a chair to reach the kitchen table, which holds her law school books, while ghostly figures of her run around caring for her husband, who has cancer.
Meltzer describes Ruth’s determination and successes, as well as her losses, her approach to solving problems, and her belief that well-reasoned dissenting opinions can give others the opportunity to change rules in the future. Meltzer’s research is thorough and clear, but the subjects he covers, including overt references to antisemitism, may be more appropriate for readers ages seven and up, rather than five, as the publisher recommends. A timeline of key events in Ruth’s life appears at the very end.
This innovative biography about a woman dedicated to seeking justice and righting the wrongs she saw around her is bound to rouse a new generation to want to do the same.
Sharon Elswit, author of The Jewish Story Finder and a school librarian for forty years in NYC, now resides in San Francisco, where she shares tales aloud in a local JCC preschool and volunteers with 826 Valencia to help students write their own stories and poems.
