Ellen Mahoney

This book is part of the excellent series by Chicago Review Press featuring educational content plus twenty-one related activities.

Gandhi is remembered in India for his tireless work to help India achieve independence from Britain. Inside his country, Gandhi is considered to be the Father of the Nation. Outside of India, Gandhi is primarily known for his advocacy of nonviolence as a method of protest. In particular, Gandhi greatly influenced Martin Luther King, Jr., who called Gandhi “the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change.” Gandhi’s actual first name was Mohandas, but most people know him by the name given to him from midlife on, “Mahatma” which means “Great Soul.”

The book begins with a time line that starts in 1869, the year of Gandhi’s birth, and goes to 1948, the year in which Gandhi was assassinated at age 78.

Gandhi had a fascinating life, but most Americans don’t know much about him. (I astounded a 12- and 14- year old by pointing out that Gandhi was married at age 13 - to an older woman, no less - she was 14.) Also kids might find interesting the fact that, as a young boy, Gandhi was shy and fearful, frightened by the idea of thieves, ghosts, snakes, spiders, and even the dark. He hated leaving the safety of his home.

Yet Gandhi managed to overcome his fears, and grew up to work for Indian rights in both India and South Africa. He spoke to huge crowds advocating freedom and nonviolence, and organized marches, boycotts, fasts, and protests. He was a prolific writer, not just about political issues but on health matters. He also spent a total of nearly six years in prison.

In 1893, at age 23, Gandhi, now a lawyer, left for South Africa after receiving a job offer there. Shocked at the treatment of Indians by the racist white government, Gandhi began speaking about nonviolence as a means of protest. In 1894 he founded the Natal Indian Congress to fight for Indians’ rights. Gandhi eventually called his strategy of passive resistance “satyagraha,” which means “firmness for truth and love.”

Gandhi moved back to India in 1915, where he received a hero’s welcome and continued his work for social reform and independence from colonial rule by Great Britain. He used fasting, a boycott of British products, and most notably, a protest against British control of salt. As the author explains:

“Gandhi was angry that the British government controlled one of India’s basic resources and necessities for food - salt. India was surrounded by salty ocean waters, and salt was readily available from the ocean or from shallow salt pans typically located along the coast.

But the British would not allow Indians to collect, produce, or sell their own salt. . . . According to imposed salt laws, Indians could only buy salt from the British. Plus salt was heavily taxed, which made it difficult for Indians to afford it.”

On March 12, 1930, Gandhi, now aged 60, began his historic Salt March. He led around 80 others (including an American journalist) on a 24-day, 240-mile trek to the seaside town of Dandi. When he arrived, he committed the illegal act of scooping up a small handful of salt from the mud in the beach. This simple symbolic act made headlines around the world and ignited a campaign of mass civil disobedience.

Gandhi, needless to say, was taken to jail. But a female Indian poet, Sarojini Naidu, took over the protest and led nearly 2500 marchers to the Dharasana Salt Works. British-led police brutally clubbed the marchers upon their arrival, even though the protesters did not fight back or even try to defend themselves. Once again the news was broadcast to the world.

Gandhi continued to agitate, get arrested, and go on protest fasts that were increasingly harmful to his health. In 1947, Britain finally enacted the Indian Independence Act that declared British India would be divided into the two countries of India and Pakistan (the latter country designated for Muslim peoples). Gandhi was opposed to the separation, fearing it would cause more problems, which it did, and which remain to this day. Gandhi, now elderly and frail, worked hard to prevent a civil war in India until his assassination on January 30, 1948.

Prime Minister Nehru said upon announcing Gandhi’s death:

“The light that has illumined this country for these many years will illumine this country for many more years, and a thousand years later that light will still be seen in this country, and the world will see it and it will give solace to innumerable hearts.”

Besides Gandhi’s influence on Martin Luther King, Jr., others profoundly influenced by Gandhi included Nelson Mandela, the 14th Dalai Lama, and the Myanmar freedom activist, Aung San Suu Kyi.

Like the other books in this series, this one includes projects for kids that extend the lessons imparted in its history to other subject areas. The 21 activities included to help learn about Gandhi’s world are, to me, the best I’ve seen in this series so far. One of them teaches basic yoga poses. Another explains how to make Rangoli sand art (an ancient Indian folk art). Others include how to create a toran (a welcoming door hanging), instructions for making a Dija Candleholder (a traditional Indian lamp made of baked clay), a recipe for Nan Khatai cookies (buttery cookies popular in India), how to create a henna hand design (worn by brides when they marry), and how to spin thread from a cotton boll (you can apparently order cotton bolls online - who knew!)

There are a number of very interesting sidebars to explain concepts such as Hinduism and Hindu deities, the idea of the sacred cow, the ashram, and the spiritual origins of the nonviolence movement.

A pronunciation guide, glossary, and annotated list of relevant websites are at the back of the book.

Evaluation: This book and the others in the series provide an outstanding supplement to school materials for kids. The author said that she wanted to write about Gandhi for young readers because of the importance of his message of nonviolence in our world today where we witness violence on a daily basis, and this book will surely inspire readers with both the text and the activities. Besides the informative narration of the main story, there are plenty of photos and graphics and sidebars and boxes that mix it up and keep it interesting.… (altro)

This book, subtitled “Mighty Muckrakers From the Golden Age to Today” is part of the excellent series by Chicago Review Press featuring educational content plus twenty-one activities in each book about subjects of interest.

A surprising number of people are unfamiliar with the names of Nelly Bly, Ida Tarbell, Ida B. Wells, and others, who did so much to uncover injustices throughout American history. But there is so much to learn from these brave, trailblazing women, especially given women’s position in society for much of this time period.

Nellie Bly, for example, was born as Elizabeth Jane Cochran in 1864. Working as a news correspondent under her pen name, she was eventually hired by Joseph Pulitzer’s “New York World” and went undercover at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum in New York, writing an exposé that became the book Ten Days in a Mad-House. Incidentally, in addition to her other accomplishments, Bly traveled around the world in a successful attempt to beat the record of Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg character in the novel Around the World in Eighty Days.

Bly even reported on World War I from the tenches as a war correspondent for William Randolph Hearts’s newspaper, The “New York Evening Journal.”

Ida B. Wells was born into slavery in 1862. But she grew up to become an acclaimed journalist who shed light on the practice of lynching in the post-Civil War South, publishing three major books on lynching in her lifetime. As she maintained, "The people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press."

She was also a dedicated activist for the rights of blacks (in 1909, she helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) as well as for women. In 1892, Frederick Douglass wrote to her:

“Brave woman! You have done your people and mine a service which can neither be weighed nor measured. If American conscience were only half alive, if the American church and clergy were only half Christianized, if American moral sensibility were not hardened by persistent infliction of outrage and crime against colored people, a scream of horror, shame and indignation would rise to Heaven wherever your pamphlet shall be read.”

Ida Tarbell famously exposed antitrust practices in her book The History of the Standard Oil Company. Much of what people believed about the role of competition in general and the Standard Oil Trust came from her 1904 account. Tarbell dug into public documents across the country that described instances of Standard Oil’s strong-arm tactics against rivals, railroad companies, and others that got in its way. (John D. Rockefeller famously derided her as “Miss Tar Barrel.”) She reviewed testimony in court and before Congressional committees, as well as copies of pleadings in lawsuits. She talked to people inside the company and those who had competed against Standard Oil. And she succeeded in gaining their confidence – a step where others had failed.

The book also features a look at some male muckrakers, including Jacob Riis and Upton Sinclair, as well as modern muckrakers like Amy Goodman and the Watergate scandal team of Woodward and Bernstein. (The term "muckraker" was first used to describe investigative journalists by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. It came from John Bunyan's 1684 work The Pilgrim's Progress. Roosevelt intended the term as an insult, but the reporters co-opted it as a badge of honor.)

Like the other books in this series, this one includes 21 activities for kids that extend the lessons imparted in history to other subject areas. Activities include guidelines on how to write letters to newspapers, how to make a reporter’s notebook, an explanation of “the five Ws” (essential to all reporting, whether book reports or news reports: who, what when, where, and why), instructions on making an ideas box, and much more.

Resources in the book also include a timeline, bibliography, list of places to visit, and an annotated list of websites to investigate.

Evaluation: This book and the others in the series provide an outstanding supplement to school materials for kids, and will inspire readers with both the text and the activities. Besides the informative narration of the main story, there are plenty of photos and graphics and sidebars and boxes that mix it up and keep it interesting.… (altro)

NELLIE BLY AND INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM FOR KIDS by Ellen Mahoney is an engaging exploration of the muckraking era beginning in the late 1800s.

Using Nellie Bly as the focus, this outstanding informational book explores the life of this well-known investigative journalist while teaching readers about the art and science of journalism. In addition to Bly, the book also features other key muckrakers from the era including Jacob Riis, Ida Tarbell, Ida B. Wells, and Upton Sinclair. It concludes with connections to modern times.

Alluring quests are woven throughout the book. These 21 fun activities help readers learn the basics of journalism. Youth are involved in investigations such as finding the 5Ws and conducting an interview, writing assignments such as writing a short story and sending a letter, and multimedia experiences such as designing a board game, creating a comic strip, and building a diorama.

The compelling narrative will immerse readers in history and bring alive the experience of these important journalists. The highly visual text incorporates a timeline, digital reproductions of primary source materials, period illustrations, and historical photographs. The use of sidebars, captions, famous quotes, and an attractive layout add to the appeal.

Librarians are always looking for engaging works of nonfiction to tie with Common Core informational reading experiences. The combination of an appealing narrative, primary source materials, and creative activities makes this a “must purchase” for school librarians. Add this to your social studies reading list for 2015.

This outstanding work of nonfiction is sure to inspire a new generation of investigative journalists.

Published by Chicago Review Press on May 1, 2015. Reviewed through NetGalley.… (altro)