Elizabeth Leads the Way

Elizabeth Leads the Way: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Right to Vote

Author: Tanya Less Stone

Illustrator: Rebecca Gibbon

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company

Copyright 2008

30 Pages

Historical Fiction

“She decided right then and there that she could do anything any boy could do.”

            I chose to read this book because of the huge change that women’s right to vote had on American citizens. Because I never really studied this part of American history I had never heard of Elizabeth Cady Stanton so I thought it would be interesting to read about the woman who led the way to the right to vote for women. In Elizabeth Leads the Way, Elizabeth is described as a feisty young girl who is surprised when a woman says it was a shame her baby sister had not been a boy. Elizabeth starts to see the differences between being a boy and being a girl and decides that she can do anything that a boy can do. Instead of getting married right away like all of the other young women her age, Elizabeth convinces her father to send her to school. When Elizabeth does get married she decides to keep her name and simply add her husband’s. Being married did not change Elizabeth’s view on the role of women so she and her friends organized a meeting for women in which they all decided the way to fix the many problems that women face would be to have the right to vote. In the author’s note it states that although Elizabeth did not get to the right to vote in her lifetime, she helped lead the way for the generations to come.

            The illustrations in this book were completed using gouache and color pencils on paper. The illustrator of Elizabeth Leads the Way chose to include a great deal of negative space and spot art throughout the book. The backgrounds in most of the illustrations are white and the actual illustrations are completed using colors that contrast with the background and stand out to the reader. The text placement is very informal and the illustrations lack depth such as shadows and details of the faces and surroundings.

            This book would be appropriate for most any child that is starting to read or can already ready proficiently. Younger students would enjoy the many illustrations and the story. Older students would be able to learn from Elizabeth Stanton’s story and how she fought to make her dreams come true. Teachers in any grade could use this book to teach character education. Teachers of upper elementary grades could use this book as an introduction to the right to vote movement and how women’s rights came about. This book is very enjoyable because of the story and the illustrations and I believe that most any student would enjoy reading Elizabeth Leads the Way.