Cynthia Levinson

This book describes the life of Ben Shahn and his struggles through life and his desire to create art that reflects injustices and other important topics. This book would serve a s great introduction to the injustices that many people face or have faced. We see Ben Shahn and his Jewish family attacked in their home country and then immigrate to the US where they still face challenges. This book would be best utilized in younger grades to introduce hard topics in a way that provides hope. It has an Author's note that talks about his life and says that he was so involved that you could track history through looking at his paintings. A great book for anyone who wants to hear a story of success despite the seemingly neverending struggles… (mehr)

A good primer on how the Constitution can interfere with modern governance.

Each section starts with a real world example of a problem caused or exasperated by the Constitution, a flashback to what problems our founding fathers intended to address when writing that part, and then ways we have dealt with those problems throughout the history of our country.

I don't think the graphic novel format really helps with the facts presented here, it's still pretty dense and wordy, but worth reading, especially for target audience.… (mehr)