SUSIE B. WON'T BACK DOWN

Claremont, California, fifth grader Susie B. learns something about heroes, justice, passion, and friendship during the course of a school project and student election.

Susie’s epistolary account is addressed to the subject of her Hero Project. Susan B. Anthony seems an excellent choice, at first. Narrator Susie is energetic, breathless, enthusiastic, and genuinely, charmingly funny. She attributes her challenges with attention and the difficulty she had learning to read to her “butterfly brain.” Susie and her family are White, and she has an older, biracial half brother, Lock, from her mother’s first marriage to a Black man. Lock had similar issues with focus at her age, and he and Susie’s parents are loving and supportive. Susie plans to run for school president because of the opportunity to use the microphone at school assemblies, tell people what to do, and possibly advocate for polar bears and other important causes. Susie struggles with understanding social cues and also wrestles with her outrage after learning about Anthony’s betrayal of Black suffragists. When Susie’s best friend, Joselyn, pulls away and the election campaign seems to demand that she set aside her true self, she describes the disorientation as feeling like being in Oppositeland. Her account of her unhappiness manages to be both moving and humorous, and her determined striving for justice serves her well. Joselyn is Guatemalan American; their classmates’ names signal ethnic diversity.

Engaging.