I DISSENT
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Makes Her Mark
Ruth Bader Ginsburg spent a lifetime disagreeing . . . with creaky old ideas. With unfairness. With inequality. She disagreed. She disapproved. She objected and resisted. She dissented!
Disagreeable? No. Determined? Yes! Ruth Bader Ginsburg changed her life, and ours, by voicing her disagreements and standing up for what's right. This picture book about the first female Jewish justice of the U.S. Supreme Court shows that disagreeing does not make you disagreeable and that important change can happen one disagreement at a time.
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Ages 5 and up
ISBN 978-1-4814-6559-5
Foreign editions: Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean
Buy the book:
IndieBound | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
AWARDS
2017 Sydney Taylor Book Award Winner (awarded by the Association of Jewish Libraries)
2016 National Jewish Book Award
2017 Orbis Pictus Award Honor Book for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children (awarded by the National Council of Teachers of English)
California Reading Association’s 2016 Eureka! Gold Award
New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association (NAIBA) 2017 Carla Cohen Free Speech Book of the Year
Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Honor Book
Virginia Library Association’s Jefferson Cup Award
Margaret Wise Brown Prize Honor Book (Hollins University)
SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) Crystal Kite Award
ALA-ALSC (Association for Library Service to Children) Notable Book 2017
CLA (Children’s Literature Assembly) Notable Book 2017
Notable Social Studies Trade Book 2017 (National Council for the Social Studies and Children’s Book Council)
New York Public Library Best Books for Kids 2016
DISTINCTIONS
New York Public Library Best Books for Kids 2016
Chicago Public Library Best Informational Books 2016
Booklist Editors’ Choice 2016
Notable Books for a Global Society 2017 (International Reading Association)
Tablet‘s Best Children’s Picture Books of 2016
2016 Nerdy Nonfiction Picture Book Award
Huffington Post Best Picture Books of 2016
Bank Street College Best Children’s Books of the Year 2017
A Junior Library Guild Selection
A PJ Library Selection
Autumn 2016 Kids’ Indie Next List
2016 ABC Best Books for Young Readers (American Booksellers Association)
2017 Maryland Blue Crab Young Reader Award Honor Book (Maryland Library Association)
2017 Texas Topaz Nonfiction Reading List
Wisconsin State Reading Association Picture This Year-End List 2018
State children’s book award nominations: Bluestem Award (Illinois);
Black-Eyed Susan (Maryland); Rhode Island;
Towner Award (Washington);
Nutmeg Book Award (Connecticut);
Red Clover (Vermont)
REVIEWS
“* Baddeley and Levy. . . . demonstrate how disagreement can lead to meaningful discussion and doesn’t have to be personal. This lively, inviting, and informative biography of a historic woman will empower young ones to bravely voice their opinions.”
“* Students will delight. . . . This dynamic offering is an essential purchase.”
“Speak purposefully and carry a big legal pad. . . . Read this and be inspired to work for justice through the legal system.”
“[A] spirited picture book biography of the second woman to sit on the high court”
“There’s a new strong-willed young heroine in the world of children’s literature: Ruth Bader Ginsburg. . . . [who] may now see her fan based get even younger.”
“. . . a delightfully fruitful venture . . . ”
“A perfect gift for the littlest feminists in your life.”
“I Dissent is a splendid jumping-off point for discussions with kids about how notions of justice and fairness evolve. . . A picture book is a conversation, and this one gives you and your kids so much fodder.”
“. . . an inspiring tale of ups and downs, struggles and successes.”
“. . . supremely inspiring. . . . Levy cleverly pulls out words that show Ginsburg disagreeing with the status quo and organizes the narrative around them. The young Ruth . . . not only dissented, she also ‘protested,’ ‘objected,’ ‘disapproved,’ ‘resisted and persisted,’ and ‘did not concur’–which arms young girls with a vocabulary to use when they run up against opposition.”
“I Dissent is a lively, rich, and welcome addition to classroom bookshelves.”
*Educators: This review in The Classroom Bookshelf is chock-full of great ideas for using I Dissent in classrooms, and for extending the lessons beyond this one book!
Read the Washington Post review
Read the articles in JW Magazine and TIME
MORE
Interviews about the book
Huffington Post (with Nell Minow)
Cynsations (with Cynthia Leitich Smith)
The Whole Megillah (with Barbara Krasner)
New Books Network podcast (with Susan Raab)
The Book of Life podcast (with Heidi Rabinowitz)
And, for fun, listen to and watch RBG talk about the book with Katie Couric here.
Tune in at 25:00 minutes for the I Dissent discussion.
Discussion and Classroom Guides
Anti-Defamation League: I Dissent was designated the ADL’s Book of the Month in December 2016. Read and download the ADL’s Parent/Family Discussion Guide for the book, and its Educator Discussion Guide.
The Classroom Bookshelf: Lesley University Professor Grace Enriquez shares many ideas and strategies for teaching I Dissent in this guide.
“Notorious Dissension,” by Julie Danielson on KirkusReviews.com: “a superb choice for classroom research projects”
Pencil Tips Writing Workshop Blog–in which I offer ideas for helping kids discover the power and art of dissent
And don’t miss Simon & Schuster’s I Dissent Curriculum Guide.
Listen to RBG . . .
As a 39-year-old lawyer arguing before the Supreme Court in 1972 in the case of Frontiero v. Richardson, her first appearance before the Court As a Supreme Court Justice questioning the lawyers appearing before the Court in the 2013 Voting Rights Act case of Shelby County v. Holder
Visiting her elementary school in Brooklyn, New York, in 1994