The true story of how this admirable woman persevered to become a remarkable symbol of justice. Structured as a court case, readers are presented with evidence of the injustice that Ginsburg faced as a woman, as a Jew, and as a working mother. Includes Glossary, Author’s Note.

Alyx gave this to me, and I didn't expect to cry at work today BUT HERE WE ARE. Anyway it's great and imma buy it. ( )

The true story of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who overcame many obstacles to become a Supreme Court Justice. ( )

To become the first female Jewish Supreme Court Justice, the unsinkable Ruth Bader Ginsburg had to overcome countless injustices. Growing up in Brooklyn in the 1930s and ’40s, Ginsburg was discouraged from working by her father, who thought a woman’s place was in the home. Regardless, she went to Cornell University, where men outnumbered women four to one. There, she met her husband, Martin Ginsburg, and found her calling as a lawyer. Despite discrimination against Jews, females, and working mothers, Ginsburg went on to become Columbia Law School’s first tenured female professor, a judge for the US Court of Appeals, and finally, a Supreme Court Justice.

This picture book biography examines the life and career of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, loosely presenting it as a "trial" in keeping with Ginsburg's long career in the legal field.

While I knew a lot about Ginsburg's politics and her responses in many famous Supreme Court cases, I must confess I knew next to nothing about her early life and career. This book filled in those gaps, explaining important influences in her life that guided her career. This included everything from an intelligent mother who was denied the opportunity of higher education to lack of job openings in the legal field for women, despite Ginsburg's many qualifications. These shaped Ginsburg's outlook on life, particularly in terms of her fight for women's rights and equality for all. All of this is done within the book's pages by using pretty simple language so that young readers can follow along; it also makes it obvious just how unfair these injustices are.

The illustrations are a bit more muted in terms of palette than I typically like, but they seem to fit fairly well with this book. An author's note provides some more details about Ginsburg's career, although this is more like an expansion of what's in the text than a revelation of anything new. There's also a glossary of terms at the back, which focuses largely on legal terms (e.g., appeal, plaintiff, defendant, etc.). In theory this would be helpful, but it seemed to me that the definitions were a little too technical for the intended audience. All in all, however, this was an excellent read about a pioneering woman who changed history. ( )