Women Daredevils: Thrills, Chills, and Frills - Hardcover

Cummins, Julie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0525479481 ISBN 13: 9780525479482

Publisher: Dutton Books for Young Readers, 2008

Synopsis

Annie Edson Taylor went over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Mabel Stark wrestled with tigers. Sonora Webster Carver plummeted forty feet on horseback into a tank of water. These and the eleven other women profiled in this book performed between 1880 and 1929, when females were expected to stay home and raise families, not entertain crowds with acts of derring-do. Their bravado, equal to that of any male thrill-seeker, made them inspiring at a time when women were testing the waters of equality and freedom. Julie Cummins’s conversational text and Cheryl Harness’s posterlike illustrations bring a colorful era in history to life.

About this title

From the Author:

About Julie Cummins

LIFE

It began in California on the 6th of July in 1951. It is influenced by a childhood with lots of books mostly about Laura & Mary or Betsy & Tacy or Tom & Huck. I live and work in a brown house near the very center of Independence, Missouri, the Queen City of the Trails. Outside is a tiny yard. Inside is 1 Scottie (Maudie), 1 cat (Merrie Emma), and hundreds of books.

VOCATION

That began with a degree in art education (1973) at Central Missouri State University. After I was a student teacher, I worked as a waitress, and art supply seller, a theme park portrait spinner, a greeting card person at Hallmark Cards and a needlework designer in California. I kept reading and drawing, nursing a crush on the kind of picture-making done by N.C. Wyeth, Maxfield Parrish, and Jessie Wilcox Smith.

I'd gone to Uri Shulevitz' children's book summer-study in 1984 which gave me the courage to go to New York in 1985 to show editors my willingness to illustrate books for them. Mostly, they weren't thankful. Still, I illustrated ten books, night and weekends, until I quit my greeting card job at Current in Colorado in 1989. I sculpted, designed music boxes and Kleenex boxes, won a Republic of San Marino postage stamp painting prize, and finished writing my first book. I discovered, on the Mayflower, a feel for American History.

My days are filled up with researching, writing, and painting (out of a rusty watercolor box I've used since the first Nixon Administration). I go gallivanting all over the country to see historic places and talk about picture books.

VACATION

Friends, books (murder mysteries in particular), movie theaters, and taking my old Scottie for walks - these are my pleasures. Mostly though, my fun is what I get to do for a living. If someone had told my 10-year-old self that I would get to stay home and read, write, and draw all day, I'd have said, "Oh thank you! Thank you, Fairy Godmother!"

"I'd encourage any young reader to scan their libraries and bookstores for more splendid nonfiction by Harness."

--Knoxville News-Sentinel

About the Author:

Julie Cummins was the coordinator of children's services for the New York Public Library for several years. She lives in Canandaigua, New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dutton Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0525479481
• ISBN 13: 9780525479482
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 48
• Illustrator: Harness Cheryl