LOUD AND PROUD

A tribute to the first Black woman to serve in Congress.

Brushing most of the biographical specifics into a closing timeline titled “The Chisholm Trail,” Cline-Ransome focuses on her subject’s pugnaciousness—following Shirley Chisholm from a child who was “always small, but she talked big, walked tall, and told just about everyone what to do” through the halls of state and then national government (“There may be some fireworks”) and her “Unbought and Unbossed” run for presidential candidate to retirement from Congress in 1983. Juanita punctuates scenes of Chisholm standing slender and confident in outsized eyeglasses and a crown of lacquered black hair before scowling (white male) opponents and racially diverse cheering crowds amid full-page emblematic outbursts—“What are you doing running for office?” “What does your husband think of all this?” “If you can’t support me, if you can’t endorse me, GET OUT OF MY WAY.” A closing gallery of political successors of color, from Barbara Jordan through Kamala Harris and Ilhan Omar, establishes her legacy, but she remains here no more than a distant, iconic figure. Readers may feel spoiled for choice, as this joins a recent gush of picture-book profiles, at least some of which offer warmer, more nuanced views of Chisholm as a person as well as a role model. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Readable but limited and likely to be lost in the shuffle.