| The author presents as a patriot and a scholar, either a moderate-to-conservative Republican or someone adept at aping that persona. | |
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| The Thread's Must Read |
"Rad Girls Can" and "Rad Women Worldwide"
by Kate Schatz, illustrated by Miriam Klein Stahl
Buy these books
I got an email last week from a mom who posed an intriguing question: Her daughter loved reading fiction about girl detectives, girl spies and girl superheroes. But this parent also wanted to introduce her daughter to real girls, like 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg, who are changing the world. Did I have a book that they could read together?
I do. I’m a huge fan of the “Rad Girls” and “Rad Women” books by Kate Schatz and illustrator Miriam Klein Stahl.
“Rad Women Worldwide” is colorful and chock-full of the stories of historic and contemporary women who accomplished extraordinary things. I knew nothing of Jamaica’s “Nanny of the Maroons," a former slave who became a healer and resistance leader in the 1700s. “Nanny was an excellent strategist,” the book tells us, “who knew how to outsmart the British troops." Two hundred years later, her portrait would be added to the Jamaican $500 bill.
In “Rad Girls Can,” Schatz and Stahl feature 50 young women who “have done incredible things all before the age of twenty.”
There’s the Schimmel Sisters, born and raised on an Indian reservation in eastern Oregon where they learned “rez ball," a challenging and fast-paced version of basketball. The sisters played college basketball and Shoni Schimmel went on to become a first-round draft pick for the WNBA in 2014.
Or there’s Sophie Cruz, the American-born daughter of undocumented parents from Mexico. At 5 years old, she ran up to Pope Francis, who was visiting Washington, D.C., with a note that asked him to speak to the president about “legalizing” her parents because she was scared that they'd be taken away.
Two years ago, Sophie stood at the podium at the Women’s March in D.C. — she was the youngest person invited to speak — and told the crowd: “Let us fight with love and faith and courage so that our families will not be destroyed.”
The “Rad” books are absorbing and empowering and I think they’re an antidote to a celebrity culture that, too often, celebrates vacuousness and cynicism.
-Kerri Miller |
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| | | Talking Volumes 2019 season guide |
MPR and the Star Tribune are proud to announce the 20th season of Talking Volumes. This season will feature interviews with Alice Hoffman, Saeed Jones, Tim O’Brien, Karen Armstrong, Lindy West and Tracy K. Smith.
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| | | Face-to-face with a grizzly | | "The Twenty-Ninth Day: Surviving a Grizzly Attack in the Canadian Tundra" by Alex Messenger |
| Buy this book
Duluth author Alex Messenger's new book recounts how his encounter with a grizzly bear during a 600-mile canoe trip changed his life.
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| | | London's 'Mudlark' pulls treasure from the Thames | | "Mudlark: In Search of London's Past Along the River Thames" by Lara Maiklem |
| Buy this book
"I'm finding these ordinary pieces that perhaps, almost undoubtedly, nobody's touched since the last person who dropped it," Lara Maiklem says. "To reach down and pick that up is like reaching back through time, into history itself. It's the closest thing I can imagine to time travel."
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