Tear This Down

     I see Barbara Dee as sort of a latter day Judy Blume. Remember back in the day Blume scandalized many adults with Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret? while providing preteens with content they wanted and needed? Dee is crafting stories with relatable plots and characters that tackle middle grade readers' concerns. In Maybe He Just Likes You she covered how real peer sexual harassment is often written off as harmless by adults. In Everything I Know About You she took on eating disorders. And in Tear This Down she looks at how ready many adults in power are to dismiss young people's legitimate concerns. 

 "My dear Mrs. Rutherford, 

I was delighted to receive your letter of the first of May. Like you, I believe women are best suited for the hearth and the nursery, and ill-suited for the ballot-box. To put it plainly, women are too emotional to vote."

     Freya is growing up in a coastal town where everything-the library, the school, the festival, and even the town itself-are named after its most famous resident, Benjamin Wellstone. The whole tourist aesthetic is centered around him. This hasn't really bothered her before. In fact she's found comfort in tradition and predictability...

     ...until her history teacher gives an assignment: to do research on a local historical figure. That's when she discovers that number one home boy preached that women should be allowed to vote or attain higher education since "their noblest and truest function is to preserve the sanctity of the home."

"We all--twenty Sisters in everything but blood--have already sacrificed so much: not only our health and comfort and dignity, but also our marriages and families. If I ask any of them to surrender now, to end our hunger strike and bow to our captors, those sacrifices will have been for nothing. We truly have no choice but to continue on the path we have freely chosen, and as long as we walk together, I  know in my bones that we will win."

     With the help of a reference librarian Freya discovers the 1919 diary of Octavia Padgett, a local sufragist who sacrificed all in the fight to gain the vote for women. She believes that Octavia is much more worthy of the town's adoration than Benjamin Wellstone...

     ...but it's going to be an uphill struggle getting the adults to listen.

     This book will appeal to anyone disregarded and silenced for being too young.

On a purrrsonal note, the BIG NEWS that I promised yesterday: Monday at 11:00 I am going to be interviewed by my FAVORITE reporter/anchor, Sierra of Channel 5!!! She's doing a story on me getting my masters less than 2 years after the stroke. You could have knocked me over with a feather 🪶 when I got her email. When saw her cover a story in 2023 I determined that I'd do something so amazing that she'd come interview me. Just didn't think it would happen so soon.

A great big shout out goes out to Sierra. 

Jules Hathaway 

     

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