What's the Big Deal About Freedom

by Ruby Shamir, Matt Faulkner (Illustrator)

Overview

From the Constitution to abolition, from voting to civil rights, this chapter book for civic-minded young readers filled with fun facts and historical trivia shows how America got the nickname "land of the free." A perfect way to start a conversation about American freedoms with young readers.

It's a "free country"! Why? Because in America we're free to speak our minds, choose our leaders, and set the rules. Since way back when Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, Americans have stood up for freedom again and again—but it wasn't always easy!

Did you know that Henry "Box" Brown escaped slavery by shipping himself north in a box? Or that Susan B. Anthony was arrested when she tried to vote? Did you know that even young kids protested for the right to go to school?

This entertaining, fact-filled book, perfect for fans of the Who Was series, is a great way to talk about America, its values, and the rights we all enjoy. It celebrates how, with every generation, more and more Americans won the right to be free. Find out how they did it and why standing up for the "land of the free" is such a big deal!

With full-color illustrations throughout and a timeline of American history and additional reading resources at the end, this book is a perfect introduction to the meaning of freedom in America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593114872
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	02/11/2020
Series:	What's The Big Deal About Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	64
Sales rank:	412,207
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.60(h) x 0.30(d)
Age Range:	6 - 9 Years

About the Author

Ruby Shamir (www.rubyshamir.com) worked at the White House for three and a half years, two of which she served in the First Lady’s office, and she also led Hillary Rodham Clinton’s New York Senate office. Now she works as a writer and literary researcher in the Bronx, New York, where she lives with her husband and three children. She is also the author of What's the Big Deal about First Ladies. Follow Ruby on Twitter @ruby_shamir.

Matt Faulkner (www.mattfaulkner.com) is an award-winning children’s book author and illustrator with forty books to his credit. He is married to author and children’s librarian Kris Remenar, and they live with their two children and two cats in the lower right-hand corner of Michigan. Follow Matt on Twitter @mattfaulkner1.

Read an Excerpt

LAND OF THE FREE

You know that feeling you get when you can finally unbuckle your seat belt after a long trip in a cramped car? Or when the bell rings on the last day of school before summer vacation? Or when you see a wide open field that you can run through without worrying about traffic or cars? That’s freedom.

There are lots of ways to be free in America. Here, you’re free to dress the way you want, speak your mind, and choose the people you want to be friends with. There are also freedoms we enjoy all together as a country, like the freedom to decide on the rules and choose who’s in charge.

In a big country with lots of different people, freedom doesn’t mean you can do anything you want all the time. It’s a free country, all right, but you aren’t free to hurt people or steal their stuff or damage things that aren’t yours. That means that the right to freedom comes with certain responsibilities—to take care of each other, treat people fairly, and make sure that everyone else can live in safety and enjoy their freedom too.

When we celebrate freedom in America we usually do it on July 4th—America’s birthday. What happened on that day? How did it shape the future of freedom in America? What’s the big deal about freedom, anyway?

Editorial Reviews

Praise for What's the Big Deal About Freedom:

"Bolstering the upbeat tone of the writing while emphasizing the racial and religious diversity of Americans, the lively watercolor-and-pencil illustrations are consistently engaging and occasionally endearing. A hopeful, idealistic portrayal of freedom in America." —Booklist

"An effective place for children to begin learning about the concept of freedom." —School Library Journal

From the Publisher

06/01/2017
Gr 2–5—Americans describe their country as the "land of the free" every time they sing their national anthem, but how often do they take a step back and really think about what that phrase means? Starting with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, this book considers how freedom has been expanded and restricted by governmental, racial, religious, and economic factors. Demonstrating that freedom in practice can be the framework that provides citizens with rights and protections, the author explains the significance of the Bill of Rights, then goes into more detail about slavery, labor laws, immigration policies, and voting expansion. Using a question-and-answer format, the conversational text incorporates sentence fragments and mimics an animated adult/child discussion. Carefully designed and well-executed watercolor and pencil illustrations spill over the pages, adding information, detail, and humor to the text. The images depict people of varying ethnicities, religious dress, and ages; a person using a wheelchair; same-sex couples; etc. Presenting so many topics necessarily leads to some simplification, but Shamir offers enough content to give readers a general idea and inspire them to investigate further. VERDICT An effective place for children to begin learning about the concept of freedom. A general nonfiction purchase.—Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst, St. Christopher's School, Richmond, VA

School Library Journal

2017-03-29
Shamir offers an investigation of the foundations of freedoms in the United States via its founding documents, as well as movements and individuals who had great impacts on shaping and reshaping those institutions. The opening pages of this picture book get off to a wobbly start with comments such as "You know that feeling you get…when you see a wide open field that you can run through without worrying about traffic or cars? That's freedom." But as the book progresses, Shamir slowly steadies the craft toward that wide-open field of freedom. She notes the many obvious-to-us-now exclusivities that the founding political documents embodied—that the entitled, white, male authors did not extend freedom to enslaved African-Americans, Native Americans, and women—and encourages readers to learn to exercise vigilance and foresight. The gradual inclusion of these left-behind people paints a modestly rosy picture of their circumstances today, and the text seems to give up on explaining how Native Americans continue to be left behind. Still, a vital part of what makes freedom daunting is its constant motion, and that is ably expressed. Numerous boxed tidbits give substance to the bigger political picture. Who were the abolitionists and the suffragists, what were the Montgomery bus boycott and the "Uprising of 20,000"? Faulkner's artwork conveys settings and emotions quite well, and his drawing of Ruby Bridges is about as darling as it gets. A helpful timeline and bibliography appear as endnotes. A reasonably solid grounding in constitutional rights, their flexibility, lacunae, and hard-won corrections, despite a few misfires. (Informational picture book. 6-10)

Kirkus Reviews