Volume II Number 2
October 27, 1995

image Mary Ann Shadd.

Rosemary Sadlier.
Toronto: Umbrella Press, 1995. 80pp, cloth, $19.95.
ISBN 1-895642-16-7.

Subject Headings:
Shadd, Mary A., 1823-1893.
Women, Black-Canada-Biography-Juvenile literature.
Educators-Canada-Biography-Juvenile literature.
Women newspaper editors-Canada-Biography-Juvenile literature.

Grade 10 and up / Ages 15 and up.
Review by Grace Shaw.

excerpt:

. . . . the first Black woman publisher and first Black newswoman and investigative reporter in North America, as well as one of the first women editors of an anti-slavery paper in Canada West.

Mary Ann Shadd was a book that needed to be written. So little is known about the heroic lives of Blacks in Canada. Rosemary Sadlier adds this third book on a related topic to her previous works, Harriet Tubman and Leading the Way, biographies of Black women in Canada.

Mary Ann Shadd celebrates one admirable woman's determined fight against discrimination, sexism, and slavery; it reaffirms that one person can make a difference.

The book is enriched by included maps, explanations, pictures, and biographies of the significant people in Shadd's life. Still, a historical framework of her life and times would have been helpful to the reader. And some stilted, repetitious phrasing irritates at times -- but the book does what it is intended to do: it commemorates the life of a remarkable woman, truly a role model for all who fight injustice, a fight that perhaps is never really won. (It was shocking to read that the last segregated school in Ontario was not closed until 1965.)

A very accessible book for high school students and adults.

Recommended.

Grace Shaw is a teacher at Vancouver Community College.

image image Copyright © 1995 the Manitoba Library Association. Reproduction for personal use is permitted only if this copyright notice is maintained. Any other reproduction is prohibited without permission.

Published by
The Manitoba Library Association
ISSN 1201-9364

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