MADAM SPEAKER

A short, admiring biography, punctuated with quotations from Pelosi and accompanied by simple, stylized art.

The initial double-page spread shows little Nancy D’Alesandro stuffing envelopes for one of her father’s political campaigns. (He served both in Congress and as Baltimore’s mayor.) A framed family portrait—including Nancy’s five older brothers—sits beneath a quotation in which she lists her family’s allegiances to Catholicism, patriotism, Italian American pride, and the Democratic Party. The text is accessible and clever, as in its assertion that Nancy and her brothers “looked up” to portraits of past presidents and also “never looked down on those who needed a hand up.” As the text reveals her passage from youth into adulthood, it suggests that Pelosi learned about leadership from her father and from nuns at her college prep school. Pelosi’s own words add motherhood to her leadership training. This and other well-chosen quotations show her cleareyed understanding from an early age of gender-based power dynamics. The text follows her further education; her marriage and swift plunge into raising five children; her congressional work in support of LGBTQ+ rights and the Affordable Care Act; her record-breaking eight hours of speech to protect DACA recipients. The art includes mostly benevolent-looking people of varied racial presentations; the text barely suggests political discord but unabashedly highlights Pelosi’s Democratic victories. It’s possible that even children of Republicans will be inspired by the ending.

Overall, a solid choice for first-time biography readers.