Ann Donegan Johnson

This title is obviously hilarious (it's from a series of "ValueTales," which are not as far as I can tell intended to instil Christian values but only "good' ones, but the fact that I wondered I think tells us something interesting about Christian ownership of the term "values" in our society). And as a kid who took out the Rocket Richard hockey bio from my elementary school library (wish I could remember what it was called) about umpty-billion times, I can confirm that the his exploits and show more history can be riveting to kids if told right. Unfortunately, this book replaces most of those facts with repetitive, goofy sloganeering "You did it, Maurice ... because you had ... TENACITY." "You're right! I showed them all, because of my amazing surplus of ... TENACITY!" One presumes all the other players didn't have enough tenacity or they also would have scored 50 goals in 50 games, or that Clarence Campbell didn't show tenacity when he banned the Rocket for the season and stuck to it through all the vegetables and teargas and crypto-nationalist rioting. Also, Maurice has a talking hockey stick buddy called "Slapper" who's just begging to be revealed as a kind of demonic thrall doing the filthy, insinuating work of a Lord of the Pit who feeds and gains strength off each of Rocket Richard's goals and assists. show less

Perhaps it's not the best book about Harriet Tubman, but as part of the Values series, it was a pretty great installment.

Some people like to deride Eleanor Roosevelt as a commie or socialist or whatever, but you can't deny that she did a lot of good work, and taught a valuable lesson in the work she did for helping the poor.

This book is a story-driven biography of Marie Curie the co-discoverer of radium, first female to receive a doctoral degree in physics and win a Nobel Prize. This book understates the prejudice she faced as a woman in her time.