A Kids Book About Equality

Gr 2-5–In a first-person, freestyle narrative that is more like a classroom visit from tennis great Billie Jean King than a lesson on equality, this book offers children a conversation about aspects of unfair behavior. It’s a glimpse of a wide-ranging topic, and an ice-breaker, but the strict use of text (two fonts, a striped groovy open one that makes words more illustrative, plus a straightforward bold black one) only leaves the ideas figuratively hanging in the air. Without pictures or photographs of King, younger children have to hang on to the disembodied narration; older children may find the actual tone of King’s explanations pandering and even childish: about inequality, “Do you know why? I didn’t know what to call it when I was a kid. No one ever told me. But you seem like a smart kid, so I’ll tell you.” The book covers wage discrimination, inequality in sports, the classroom, and daily life; it’s helpful as a starting point from a seasoned witness to history and the publisher suggests that adults and children share the book to ensure that the information has the greatest impact.