Miss Paul and the President: The Creative Campaign for Women's Right To Vote

K-Gr 3—This picture book biography introduces young readers to Alice Paul, the suffragist and women's rights activist. Readers will learn of Paul's fierce efforts to win the right to vote for women, including putting together a parade in Washington, DC, that upstaged the incoming president, Woodrow Wilson; organizing protesters outside the White House; and directly confronting President Wilson on the matter of women's suffrage. The author connects these efforts ("making mischief") to Paul's wild youth, a time when she sneaked candy, chased chickens, and threw mud balls. Watercolor and color pencil illustrations support this spirited view with lively movement and color as she is shown leading a parade of 8,000 women, sitting in President Wilson's office and looking him right in the eye, protesting outside the White House gate, and even being hauled off to jail by the police for refusing to leave the grounds. All of these efforts pay off when Wilson finally decides to support women's right to vote. A final illustration shows the triumphant Paul on her way to vote in the 1920 election.