ANNE HUTCHINSON’S WAY

Atkins offers a beautifully produced and constructed fictionalized tale of the preacher and midwife Anne Hutchinson, told from the point of view of Susanna, Hutchinson’s youngest child until they arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634. Anne does not like the shouting or the harshness of the minister and begins to speak of the Scriptures to neighbors who gather at her home. But leaders of the colony do not take kindly to women preaching, and lock her away from her family for disturbing the peace. They release her when the household is able to move on. Dooling’s full-bleed illustrations are fully imagined in white and earth tones, sculptural modeling and use of negative space. His use of multiple vantage points adds to the drama and effectiveness of the pictures. An author’s note tells how Anne and her younger children eventually settled in what is now the Bronx and were killed by local Algonquian-speaking Indians who cared for Susanna for some years. Atkins tells a complex story of faith and freedom with clarity and strength. (Picture book/fictionalized biography. 8-11)