After 150 years, what’s a few more days? Happy birthday (or, as my grandmother would insist, birthday anniversary) to Jane Addams, born September 6, 1860. Some celebrations have already taken place this week in Chicago, and at our local Jane Addams Middle School. You still have a chance to make it to some Chicago events held by the Jane Addams Hull House Association.
Of course, another good way to mark the anniversary is to learn a little more about Jane Addams. For older kids or teens, I would suggest:
Jane Addams: Champion of Democracy by Judith Bloom Fradin and Dennis Brindell Fradin.
Readers who are a little younger might enjoy:
Jane Addams: Pioneer Social Worker by Charnan Simon.
Did you know there is also a children’s book award named for Jane Addams? Like the woman for whom the award is named, the honored books “promote the cause of peace, social justice, world community, and the equality of the sexes and all races” (as well as being good reads, well-illustrated, etc.). The most recent winners of the Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards are:
Nasreen’s Secret School by Jeanette Winter
Marching for Freedom by Elizabeth Partridge
Four additional books were named Honor Books, two for younger children:
Sojourner Truth’s Step-Stomp Stride by Andrea Davis Pinkney & Brian Pinkney
You and Me and Home Sweet Home by George Ella Lyon and Stephanie Anderson
and two for older children:
Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone
Claudette Colvin by Phillip Hoose.
If you want to see more, you can find a list of all the books that have won the award at the website for the Jane Addams Peace Association.