Joan of Arc by Shana Corey

Joan of Arc by Shana Corey, illustrated by Dan Andreasen

Rating: 4 stars

Seen the movie Frozen?  Heard the songs from it…maybe just once or twice?  Not surprisingly, Lorelei is downright enchanted with the story, the characters, and the songs.  Last night I had to ask her to sing a little more quietly as she flitted around her room before turning her light out because her brothers were already asleep.

While singing "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" Anna sings as she gazes up at a painting: "Hang in there, Joan!" Lorelei, in her ice cream night gown and wavy hair in her face, sung the line "Hang in there Joe."  I had to pause her enthusiastic singing and insert a teachable moment. It sounds worse than it was.  It sounds like I deflated her fun.  Oh wait, I think I might have.  POP!

I quickly explained that it was J-O-A-N, a girl, and she was a famous woman…wait, actually a teenage girl who fought for France in a war.  Lorelei's eyes got bigger with these quick facts, unable to digest the craziness of that story.  Or maybe she just wanted to get back to the flitting around part of her evening.

The next day we went to the library--wonderfully, with my mom, who occupied the rogue Kiefer who can still get loud and feisty at the drop of a hat--and Lorelei and I wandered over to the biography section.  We were looking for books on Georgia O'Keefe; Lorelei's class was learning about her in art and Lorelei was pretty intrigued and curious to know more.  She also humored me and said "yes" to wanting a book on Joan of Arc, too.  So we got one two on Georgia and one on Joan…it clearly was Famous Woman Day at the library for us.

We got home and read Joan of Arc over dinner.  And I immediately realized how serious a story it is for a Step into Reading book.  Shana Corey does a wonderful job of putting such a huge, serious story into digestible sentences and using the right words for this reading level.  But it's still an incredible, sobering story.  I was glad to be there to answer the many questions that came up.  "What's a vision?  How could they fight for 100 years? Why couldn't women fight? What does prisoner mean?" But Lorelei and Ben were all ears--the book smartly starts with Joan looking for a sword for her journey, so Ben was captivated by the thought of a voice telling her where a sword was located.  As the book follows Joan from a village to the prince, and then on to battle, the kids were spellbound.  They asked a few times, "This is really nonfiction?"

And then the book came to the final pages.  Joan is, you probably know, captured and put on trial.  If she lies and says she does not hear the voices, she'll escape her punishment of burning at the stake.  She does not lie--she stays true to herself and to God and therefore is tied to the stake and the fire is lit.  Needless to say, the kids were still spellbound at that part…and there were a few more follow-up questions to be answered.

AND needless to say, I rolled my own eyes at myself for getting a book with a young girl burning at the stake for my nearly 7 year old and 5 year old!  Did I cross the line this time and go overboard on wanting to teach anything and everything as soon as possible?  But…if not now, when?  These stories are part of history and part of my own Catholic background and…even part of a Frozen song.  And we read the book together, I answered my kids' questions patiently and honestly, and the kids know I'll be around if they have more thoughts on the inspiring but shocking story of a very famous woman in history.

Players in Pigtails by Shana Corey, illustrated by Rebecca Gibson

Players in Pigtails by Shana Corey, illustrated by Rebecca Gibson

Rating: 4.5 stars

"Crying?  There's no crying in baseball!" is one of my all-time favorite lines from any movie, delivered by Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own.

But that line is NOT in this book about Katie Casey, a girl who is not very good at being a typical girl and busying herself with piano or painting or home-ec or dancing.  Instead, she was obsessed with baseball.  She could catch a ball with her eyes closed, hit a ball with one hand behind her back.  "She preferred sliding to sewing, batting to baking, and home runs to homecoming."

I love girls like these--in real life and in books!

Because America was at war and the boys were going away to war, girls were suddenly called upon to take up the sport.  As soon as Katie Casey heard about tryouts, she was there.  Happily, she found herself surrounded by other like-minded women who wanted to talk about the quality of their curve balls instead of the hue of their lipstick.  Soon Katie was playing for the Kenosha Comets, in front of a surprisingly enthusiastic crowd.  (But only after attending finishing school and donning skirts...chuckle, chuckle...)

Who knew that the super famous--I even know some of the words--"Take Me Out to the Ball Game" was about a girl?!  I love being armed with this knowledge.  The author, Shana Corey, discovered this and couldn't shake the idea to write a children's book about Katie.  I love that she couldn't NOT write it, and I love having this book available to little girls (and boys, too).  Check this out, the lesser-known first verse and the well-known chorus, which means a lot more to me now:

Katie Casey was baseball mad.
Had the fever and had it bad;
Just to root for the hometown crew,
Every sou Katie blew.
On a Saturday her young beau
Called to see if she'd like to go
To see a show, but Miss Kate said...
"Not I'll tell you what you can do." 

"Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out to the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don't care if I never get back,
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes you're out
At the old ball game."

Lorelei and her little contemporaries won't know the limits that Katie Casey knew and fought against, thanks to Title 9 and time.  But even when we went to the baseball game on Father's Day, she asked why girls weren't playing.  She wants to do all the things that Ben can do and hopefully want to do them better.

It's great to have a book to explain that once they did, and maybe once again...they can.

And now...a very short clip on Women's Baseball in WWII: