From her home on a Missouri farm, writer Kate Klise has collaborated on many imaginative and funny children’s books with her sister, illustrator M. Sarah Klise. Here she explains how she became interested in Ella Ewing, a real-life giantess and the subject of the Klise sisters’ sixth picture book, Stand Straight, Ella Kate: The True Story of a Real Giant.

No, really. I promise. I did not write Stand Straight, Ella Kate while driving. I’m not nearly that coordinated—or should I say crazy? But I did have an epiphany while driving that shaped the text of the book.

A little background: I first read about Ella Ewing in Rural Missouri, a terrific magazine published by my electric cooperative. I was shocked to read that Ella Ewing (1872-1913), who toured the United States as the World’s Tallest Woman, grew up just a few hours north of my 40-acre farm. In all the years I’d spent as a child reading about bearded ladies and tattooed men, how had I missed Ella Ewing, the Missouri Giantess, who stood eight feet, four inches tall in her size 24 shoes?

I ripped out the Rural Missouri article and sent it to my illustrator sister Sarah, in Berkeley, California, with the note: “Wow. Do you love her or what?” Sarah read the story and sent it back to me with “LOVE her!” written above Ella’s photo.

I think what initially drew us to Ella was the look of grace and quiet elegance on her face. But there was also something Mona Lisa-ish about her. Who was this woman? What was her story? I set off to her old hometown in northern Missouri to find out.

There’s been very little written about Ella other than an out-of-print self-published book by Bette J. Wiley and a 1977 master’s dissertation by Barbara Chasteen. Both were helpful, but I needed primary sources. So I was thrilled to find that the Scotland County Memorial Library had a file folder filled with photos and newspaper articles about Ewing.

I learned that she was a woman who, beginning at age 18, appeared in museums and traveling circus shows. For seven hours a day, she stood in a long dress with a serious expression on her face while people bought tickets to stare at her. She was paid as much as one thousand dollars a month, which was a lot of money back in her day. Still, imagine being promoted as a “freak.” Even newspapers of the day used this term.

The more I read about Ella, the more I fell in love with her. She was funny. She was kind and patient. And she had a sense of dignity lacking in those around her—the promoters, reporters, people who laughed and gawked and stuck pins in her leg to see if she stood on stilts.

But there was the problem. How could I write about Ella without seeming like I was gawking at her, too? I couldn’t figure it out. For the first 10 or 12 drafts, the story wasn’t working. 

And then I was driving down a country road, thinking about Ella, wondering how I could respectfully tell her story, and listening to the radio when I heard Arlo Guthrie sing: “I’m the train they call the City of New Orleans. I’ll be gone 500 miles when the day is done.”

That’s when it hit me. I needed to rewrite the text in the first person. I needed to be Ella.

I drove home—and okay, maybe I was driving a little fast. But I waited to text until I got to my desk, where I rewrote Ella’s story from her perspective. And that’s when the story started to work.

I’m sure some people will read Stand Straight, Ella Kate as a when-life-gives-you-lemons, make-lemonade kind of story. And in a sense, it is. But to my mind, Ella’s story is a more universal story about growing up, literally, and how so often the things we dislike about ourselves as children, the things that make us different and cause people to laugh at us, are the very things that allow us to take extraordinary journeys.

In my case, for all future journeys I’ll have the radio playing in the hopes that I’ll be lucky enough to hear my text “sing” while driving.

Kate Klise and her sister, M. Sarah Klise, have co-created many epistolary novels for young readers, beginning with Regarding the Fountain and continuing with their new series, 43 Old Cemetery Road. Kate’s next novel is a solo project titled Grounded. It will be released by Feiwel and Friends in November.

Author photo by Dawn Shields.

April brings the first signs of spring—warmer days, blooms in the trees—or at least the hope of spring, if you're somewhere still suffering through the last gasp of winter. With all the changes in the natural world, it's a fitting time of year for National Poetry Month. We've been celebrating with hilarious new rhymes for young readers and even verses for babies.

Firefly July: A Year of Very Short Poems is something quite special. Thirty-six very short poems, selected by poet and anthologist Paul B. Janeczko and illustrated by Caldecott Honoree Melissa Sweet, take us through the four seasons. There's no better way to introduce little ones to the verses of Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Richard Wright and more.

We asked Janeczko and Sweet about their favorite poems from Firefly July:

Paul B. Janeczko, editor

Pick a favorite poem in this book? Oh, my. That's the anthologist's delight: I get to include all my favorite poems that fit a particular collection. But let me offer two of my favorites: "In the Field Forever" by Robert Wallace and "The first September breeze fluttered" by Liz Rosenberg. Like the other poems in this book, they show a reader that a good poem is built on a clear and vivid image, one that appeals to the reader's senses.

Beyond that, they were written by poets that don't normally write for children, and I want my young readers to reach a bit, so I always include poems written by poets not considered to be "children's poets."

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Melissa Sweet, illustrator

Making the art for Firefly July went very smoothly until I came to my favorite poem: "Window."

This poem captures the staccato feel of traveling by train at night, and it reminded me of taking the train from Maine (where I live) to New York City—a very scenic ride.

The art took a few tries before it expressed what I wanted.

The first attempt was to make one big picture, then divide it up into by drawing windows on top of the painting . . . but there wasn't enough detail or variation in the scenes.

Next, starting with the dark background and pasting down each window separately . . . it was too messy and not cohesive enough.

What was missing? Making a list of imagery I remembered from previous train rides: street lights, backyards, woods, towns and cities, roads, nocturnal animals, harbor with fishing boats, rivers, a clock. People all ages reading books, dozing, looking out the windows.

On the final try, I concentrated on each train car, one at a time—Who was in it? Where were they going? What did they see?—and painting very loosely, letting the watercolor softly tell the story.

The final piece reflects the quiet elegance of a train at night, each moment a new scene rambling by. It became my favorite spread, and I happen to know it was Paul’s favorite, too!

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FIREFLY JULY: A YEAR OF VERY SHORT POEMS. Compilation copyright © 2014 by Paul B. Janeczko. “Window” from Chicago Poems by Carl Sandburg, copyright 1916 by Holt Rinehart and Winston and renewed 1944 by Carl Sandburg, reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.  “In the Field Forever” by Robert Wallace from Ungainly Things. Copyright © 1968 by Robert Wallace. Used by permission of Christine Wallace. “The first September breeze fluttered” by Liz Rosenberg, used by permission of the author. Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Melissa Sweet. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA.

Alan Rabinowitz is a champion of wildlife conservation. He is president and CEO of Panthera, a nonprofit wildlife organization devoted to protecting big cats. As he shares in his charming picture book for children, A Boy and a Jaguar, Rabinowitz's passion for defending wildcats comes from the struggle to find his own words as a child.

My entire childhood and adolescence was characterized by the inability to speak. Until I finally was given the tools to manipulate the hard contacts in my mouth when I was a senior in college, I was not able to speak a full sentence or communicate a full thought fluently—except to my animals.

I remember feeling as if I lived in two very different worlds. The world of “normal people,” in which I felt apart and dysfunctional, yet which dominated my waking hours, and the more comfortable world of my animals. Strangely, it was the world of my pets, whom I could talk to and express myself that was the real world to me. While I felt completely normal and fluent inside my own head, the only living things that seemed to understand that, who listened without judging me, were my animals.

Eventually it became easier to avoid even trying to speak, to avoid the uncomfortable looks, the snickers, the pity of the human world. I remember being sent home from school early one day after being taken to the nurse’s office. Called on to speak in class by a substitute teacher, I had purposely dropped a pencil under my desk, bent down to retrieve it and stabbed the point of the pencil into my hand. Retelling the story to my animals that night, I thought nothing of the pain in my hand, but I reveled in the small victory at not having to be embarrassed and shamed once again in front of my classmates. The animal world saved me. And I made a promise as a child to help save them, to give them their own voices, if I ever found my own. 

This book is not simply about my childhood and finding the voice that I so desperately sought to help my animal friends. This book is about all young people who feel discarded, misunderstood or ignored. Finding strength through adversity, young people need to see that what makes them different can also make them stronger. This book is about victory. The victory of realizing that what sets you apart empowers you to seek out your dreams and achieve any goal you set in life.  

Alan Rabinowtiz collaring a jaguar in the Brazilian Pantanal.

Thanks, Alan!
Images © Steve Winter/Panthera.

It would take a whole lotta stamps to send an elephant in the mail, so young Sadie opts for a more personalized touch in Special Delivery, the new picture book romp from Philip C. Stead and Matthew Cordell. Sadie and her pachydermic package try a plane, a train and even an alligator in their postal voyage to Great-Aunt Josephine. As stamp collectors will recognize, the cover of Special Delivery is a nod to the famous Inverted Jenny stamp. Even more delightful are the book's end pages, which feature a great big pile of stamps, many of which seem to be inspired by classic children's literature. Cordell and Stead go behind their new book to share a bit more about the stamps in Special Delivery.

Matthew Cordell, illustrator

There is an awful lot going on in Special Delivery, but the book revolves around our determined hero, young Sadie, doing her darnedest to deliver (of all things) an elephant to her Great-Aunt Josephine. Sadie’s first instinct is to try and mail the big creature over and she tries this idea out at the Post Office with her postal clerk friend, Jim. Jim promptly lets Sadie know it will take a whole wheelbarrow-full of stamps to make this happen. This is one of my favorite moments in the book. I love this exchange and I love that it starts Sadie on her journey, but I also love the idea of all those stamps. I love stamps for their itsy-bitsy size, for their fun and sophisticated design and illustration, and for their historical significance. They have a sweet yet dignified nostalgic quality about them. And anyways, nothing says “Special Delivery” like a well-designed postage stamp.

The case cover (or “stamp-splosion” as I call it) was at first presented as an idea for illustrated endsheets. Whenever possible, as an added oomph of art, I like to squeeze in some well-thought illustrated endsheets into a picture book. But we were stretched thin as it was on the book’s page count. So Phil and I and our most excellent editor, Mr. Neal Porter, arranged for the stamp-splosion to stretch itself across the case cover, becoming a surprise eyeful of art hidden just beneath the book’s dust jacket. Incidentally, I knew there was going to be so much time needed to create that massive collage of stamps, that I decided to spend no time whatsoever in planning or sketching it out. When it came time to create the finished artwork, I just drew the entire thing as I went, in ink, from one end to the next. Which is very unusual for me. I typically plan and re-plan things in pencil sketches before finalizing all of my artwork. As I began drawing, I had very little idea what would be on any of these stamps other than characters or moments from the book itself. Much of it was stream of consciousness, but I ended up sneaking in a bunch of fun things including my wife and kids, my collaborators Phil and Neal, and several favorite classic picture book characters from years past.

The cover image materialized about midway into the sketching of the book. Phil and Neal and I were on the phone one afternoon having a great time discussing the first round of sketches, talking about what worked and what could yet be expanded upon to amp up the rambunctiousness of the whole thing. It was an incredibly productive and inspiring phone call that went on for over two hours. When I hung up the phone, my brain was buzzing. And it was at that exact moment that the image of the Inverted Jenny stamp popped into my head.

It was a perfect homage for this book’s cover. Not only does the book feature stamps, but there is also a sequence involving a wild ride in an old biplane. What wild ride in an old biplane would be complete without having turned the plane upside down? The 1918 stamp’s plane went upside down by accident, but in our case, it was all on purpose. I roughed it out as quick as I could and emailed the sketch over to Phil and Neal about 10 minutes after I’d hung up the phone. We all agreed that it simply couldn’t be any other way. Thankfully, by the time it came to print the book, everyone still agreed!

Philip C. Stead, author

I've been a stamp collector since the fourth grade. So of course when Matt floated his idea for the "stamp-splosion" book case I said: Let's do it! For me, stamp collecting is all about the thrill of discovery. The diminutive size of most stamps only enhances that sense of discovery. Big and bizarre stories can be found in these tiny pieces of art.

For example, canine space travel!

Or how about this funny little creature? That's quite a sweater he's wearing!

And then there's this one. Hunting elephants from hot air balloons in a curious thing to do, but not so curious, I guess, that it doesn't warrant its own stamp. (Raise your hand if you're rooting for the elephant.)

I love sifting through piles of discarded stamps to find these gems. It's a similar feeling I get when browsing the bookstore or the library. The littlest discovery can expand my entire universe!

Philip C. Stead is the author of the 2011 Caldecott Medal book A Sick Day for Amos McGee. His book A Home for Bird received four starred reviews, while his most recent book, Hello, My Name Is Ruby, has earned three starred reviews. Philip lives with his wife, illustrator Erin E. Stead, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Check out his website.

Matthew Cordell created Trouble Gum, published by Feiwel and Friends. He has also illustrated several picture books, including Mighty Casey by James Preller and the Justin Case series by Rachel Vail. He lives outside Chicago with his lovely wife, the author Julie Halpern, their adorable daughter and their generally well-mannered cat. Check out his website and follow him on Twitter.

Images reproduced by permission of Roaring Brook Press. Check out Special Delivery at Macmillan.com.

The best-selling husband and wife team of David Soman and Jacky Davis share a peek behind the scenes of the eighth book in their beloved Ladybug Girl series, Ladybug Girl and the Best Ever Playdate.

You would think, with all the things young kids have to learn in life—putting on jackets, brushing their teeth, not jumping on the dog—something like having a friend would be the easy part. But that isn’t always the case.

Exploring the theme of friendship takes a writer and illustrator through all manner of emotional terrain. The loveliness of a good friend makes one feel understood and appreciated, and with a friendship being one of the very most wonderful aspects of life, it can be very disconcerting if a friendship goes awry.

In Ladybug Girl and the Best Ever Playdate, we looked at Lulu, aka Ladybug Girl, and Finney as they navigate a playdate that doesn’t go well. We knew we needed something that would act as the catalyst for Lulu and Finney’s difficulties. Thinking back on our children’s early playdates, it wasn’t hard to remember how important toys were to them, and what a central role toys played in their social lives. We all remember that feeling of wanting a toy so badly, and the strange mix of feelings we could get if one of our friends had the very toy we wanted. So all we had to do was invent a toy that would, well, quite simply, be the best toy ever. As that is a tall order, we let our daughter make a list of things she would want in a toy, and the Rolly-Roo was born.

In doing the illustrations, the challenge was to find a way to show how Lulu and Finney were not having a bad time, but not really connecting either, and to have that contrast with the fun they have when they really start to engage with each other.

The trouble begins when Ladybug Girl’s focus on the toy gets in the way of playing with Finny.

But when the Rolly breaks and the girls are able to fix it . . . they really start having fun!

Ultimately we wanted to show that the best things in life aren’t things, and that being creative with a friend, even with the inevitable bumps along the way, can provide an opportunity to work things out and to make a friendship stronger and more vibrant.

Salina Yoon is the award-winning author of more than 200 books for children, including Penguin and Pinecone and Found. Yoon's latest picture book, Be a Friend, tells the story of Dennis, an ordinary boy who expresses himself in extraordinary ways—he's a mime! But being a mime can be lonely. It isn’t until Dennis meets a girl named Joy that he discovers the power of friendship.

Yoon shares a look behind Be a Friend, a simple yet emotional story with a muted palette.

I was sitting in bed on a Sunday morning with a cup of coffee and a notebook, and I scribbled some notes for an idea about a character who only communicates through mime. This was an idea for a humorous illustrated chapter book, I thought. I’d never written anything laugh-out-loud funny, or a book with chapters. It was a stretch. But that morning, I felt like goofing off from house chores and escaped with writing. I’d already thought of the title before I came downstairs: The Silent Adventures of Mime Boy. I chuckled.

On Monday, the character stayed with me. I started to think of a funny storyline for him. But I realized that this child, Mime Boy, would be teased in a school setting. And this broke my heart. There was nothing funny about it, and this wasn’t a chapter book I wanted to write. But the story had to be written.

I could have scrapped the idea right then, but I didn’t. Mime Boy wouldn’t let go. The character had something to say . . . and he needed a voice through pictures and minimal words, because he wanted to mime his story. This story had to be told as a picture book.

I began to sketch poses for his imaginary scenes, and Dennis was born. I was so protective of Dennis. I didn’t want him bullied, or laughed at. I wanted him to simply be who he was, and explore the world through his eyes. And through his eyes, there was happiness and love and playfulness, even though others could not see it (or so he thought). But this did not prevent him from feeling alone and different.

The moment I knew that I had a book was when I had Dennis kick his imaginary ball when he was sad and lonely, and on the next page, someone catches it. Her name was Joy. My heart melted when I envisioned this scene. Someone reached out in a way that he understood. This is a pivotal scene in the book where he finally makes a connection with another child, and this is where he finds true joy . . . the joy from having a friend. The revised book title reflects this theme.

The tone of the story was set. I struggled with an appropriate art style for this book because it was unlike any story I had written before. I could not draw him with thick black outlines like I do with my Penguin series. It would have been too bright, too flat and too cheerful.

I chose to illustrate the book with pencil on paper, because I could not think of anything more intimate than that. I had a deep connection to Dennis. The pencil drawings were scanned, then colored digitally, with a background of tonal antique paper. I looked at old Marcel Marceau footage for inspiration in black and white, and wanted Dennis’ story to be in a timeless world that told a timeless tale.

While the palette was neutral overall, I used the color red to depict the lines of his imagination. This would be the bridge between Dennis and Joy, and eventually, with the rest of the world.

One of my favorite scenes in the book is where the children have their Show and Tell. Most of the kids share their objects and talk about it, but Dennis mimes the metamorphosis of a butterfly instead in various stages.

Dennis discovers that true friends accept each other as they are. Friends don’t expect you to change, and you don’t have to change for them. And friends can open your eyes to a different world, too.

Not everyone can relate with being a mime, but we can all relate to feeling different.

And, like Dennis, with the help of our friends, we too can shine.

Check out the book trailer for Be a Friend:

RELATED CONTENT: Read our review of Be a Friend.

I wrote When I Grow Up because, as any tiger mom can tell you, the first moment you hold your child, you expect them to become the president of the United States. But as time passed and I started to get to know my son—while also learning what it means to be a mother—things started changing. 

I started to see what his interests were and what he is good at. I also saw him reject some of the things I wanted him to excel at as a “perfect” child. For example, soccer and basketball . . . NG: That means not good! Often there was either a meltdown or major bribery (OK, you can get a coveted Pokémon card) to get him to behave. Terrible! I learned the hard way how bad of a mistake it is to bribe your child. They will argue about doing things they should be doing unless they get a reward.  

I also started to see that I’m not as much of a tiger mom as I thought I would be. I thought I could teach/force my son to be a piano-playing, math-loving, trilingual basketball superstar who loves to read and volunteers at the soup kitchen where he finds the cure for cancer during his breaks.

I saw his likes and dislikes shift and change at a rapid pace. One day he’d say he wanted to be a gardener when he grew up (because he was off looking at the flowers during soccer games instead of keeping an eye on the ball). The next day he’d say he wanted to be the next King of Pop after discovering the music of Michael Jackson. Then a baker, because like Oprah, HE LOVES BREAD! Then a Legoland tour guide so he could go on the rides for free.

When I first thought about writing When I Grow Up, my son was only 7. I thought, What can I do, as I watch him grow, to make sure he finds happiness in his life and career? How did my mom help me?  

When I was growing up in Queens, New York, I remember when my family and I saw an Asian-American female face sitting at the local news anchor desk for the first time. This was SHOCKING! In those days, the only Asian faces we saw on TV were the men in cheesy, English-dubbed kung fu movies. The men wore long beards, had long hair piled on top of their heads in the now popular “man bun” and fought with long sticks. My father screamed at the top of his lungs as if he’d won the Powerball jackpot: “Ghang qwai lie, ghang qwai lie! Doong Fahng rhen zhai dian shir saang!” Translation? “Hurry up! Hurry up! There’s an ASIAN person on TV!”

My mom and I came running. There she was, Kaity Tong, co-anchoring the 5 p.m. newscast next to Tom Snyder on WABC. I was 13 years old. The year was 1983. (Ms. Tong, by the way, is still an anchor today in NYC. You go, girl!)  

My mother turned to me and asked, “If she [Kaity Tong] can do it, why can’t you?” She went on to say something to the effect of, You are inquisitive like a good reporter, you love talking to people, you like to wear pretty clothes, and you love makeup! (Hah! How shallow I was!)  

But my mom planted the seed that day, and it grew from there. I never strayed from that idea, and it became my dream. My dream started to come true six years later, and in 1989, I had my first newsroom experience. I was an unpaid intern at CBS News. Ten years after that, I became the news anchor on the very same show where I was an intern.

But it was during that internship when I realized if you do what you love, getting any size paycheck feels like a bonus. As I mentioned earlier, I worked for FREE as an intern, and I loved every minute of it. The experience was priceless.

When I Grow Up is not only written to entertain young, budding minds, but also to help other moms do what my mom did for me. The first step is to help your child find their natural talent. The second step is to see what makes them happy. The third step is helping your child figure out how to combine steps one and two into a successful life. If you can do that, then you’re halfway there to guaranteed happiness for your kid!

The other half is finding love. I am lucky I found it and have it, but I haven’t figured out how to teach my son how to find it. But if I do, you can bet I’ll write another book.
 

A little boy shares with his mom his dreams of what he might be when he grows up in When I Grow Up, a tender picture book from the host of  “The Talk” and “Big Brother,” Julie Chen, and New York Times bestselling artist and Caldecott Honor recipient Diane Goode. Chen is a mother, a television personality and a producer who lives with her family in California.

I am not a superstitious person by nature. I walk under ladders easily. I adore black cats. But I do have one ritual I adhere to religiously to ward off bad luck. Before I leave on a trip, I always call my godmother, Aunt Phyllis. I need to hear her say, “Geyn gezunt aun kumen gezunt,” which is Yiddish for “Go healthy and come back healthy,” before I can leave my home.

Did Aunt Phyllis first hear this phrase from her mother? She’s not sure. One thing I am sure of is that Aunt Phyllis’ mother, Sadie, did not hear these words from her own mother, Taube. This is because, in 1911, when Sadie was 13, Taube put her on a ship to sail across the Atlantic Ocean to America so Sadie could have a better life. She would “geyn gezunt”—go in good health—but she would not “kumen gezunt”—come back in good health. She would not come back at all. That was the point. Eastern Europe was not a safe place for Jews at the start of the 20th century. Sadie was being sent away so that she might have a better life.

I don’t remember when Aunt Phyllis first told me the story of Sadie’s voyage to America—how she was given a piece of paper with the name and address of a relative and told not to lose it, and how she held the paper so tightly that by the time she arrived in America, all the ink had worn off on her hand. I also don’t remember when I first heard the story of Ruth, my maternal grandmother, who came to America in 1900 with her mother Fannie, bringing little but a pair of precious Shabbos candlesticks—which my grandmother gave me shortly before she died at age 99.

That’s something I love about being a writer; there are countless stories lodged inside my brain and heart waiting for the right moment to emerge and tap me on the shoulder. These two stories arrived in 2015 as I gazed at newspaper photos of Syrian refugees washing up on European shores. I stared at the faces of those in search of a better life, and something felt familiar to me. My family also had a history of fleeing persecution. It was time for those stories to be told.

All I had to go on were the bare bones of two family stories. I decided to combine Sadie and Ruth into one character, “Gittel.” I couldn’t bear to put her on a ship all alone (imagine how Sadie’s mother must have felt) so I gave her a traveling companion: a doll named Basha. I researched living conditions on the ships sailing for America in the early 1900s, and I read about the way new immigrants were “processed” upon arrival at Ellis Island. Just as importantly, I did what I call “emotional research,” asking myself questions such as, what would it feel like to be a young girl leaving behind everything I knew and loved? What would it feel like to arrive in a new country all alone unable to speak the language? What would I carry from my old life into my new life? What makes a home?

My hope is that Gittel’s Journey: An Ellis Island Story, a book based upon my own family history, will inspire others to tell their immigrant stories. And I hope my book will remind readers of all ages the importance of greeting new members of our society with open arms. It is our responsibility to provide them with what they are seeking: a safe place to call home. Which is something that everyone deserves.

I first read about “bicycle face” around the time my daughter was learning to ride a two-wheel. The term popped up on a number of online news sites and referred to a bogus medical affliction intended to scare people, especially women, away from riding during the bicycle craze of the 1890s. It was a wild story and seemed almost too regressive to be real, even for the time, so I dove into old chronicles to learn more.

I discovered that bicycle face was just one of many alleged bicycle-related maladies. There were countless others, like “bicycle hump” and “bicycle leg.” Bicycle face, it was said, came from the strain of riding and resulted in bulging eyes and a clenched jaw. It was a threat to both men and women but purported to afflict those of a delicate nature (read: women) with greater frequency and to a more serious degree.

This quote nicely sums up the fictitious condition as it pertained to women: “No woman on a wheel has yet solved the problem of self-consciousness; and of all the sad sights that greet the eye that of the woman in baggy breeches plowing her way along the boulevard with a stern, fixed, anxious face betraying apprehension of some unseen danger, combined with the consciousness of the popular scrutiny and comment and sometimes a lurking suspicion that not all may be right with her, is the saddest. In such cases as these, the strain upon the special brain center must be not only incessant but tremendous, and it must of necessity sooner or later produce the bicycle face which the victim must carry to the grave . . .” (From the Chicago Tribune, July 7, 1895.)

The threat of bicycle face was only a sliver of the serious pushback early wheelwomen encountered. Critics also said riding a bicycle threatened to “unsex” women, damaging not only their reproductive organs but their inherent femininity as well, turning them into loose young ladies, disobedient wives and negligent mothers.

Fortunately, what I read wasn’t all misogynistic headlines. Researching bicycle face led me to learn about the many ways spirited wheelwomen flat out ignored religious, medical and patriarchal calls for them to cease riding.

Early wheelwomen loved riding and were good at it. They taught each other to fix their own bikes, established their own magazine called The Wheelwoman, and otherwise had loads of fun socializing, racing and using bikes to make their work easier. They also adjusted their fashion so they could ride unencumbered and look good doing so—hello, short skirts and bloomers!

In writing Born to Ride, I wanted to reclaim bicycle face. I wanted to retroactively turn that silly threat on its head and transform it into something celebratory, as befits bold young readers and riders.

I watched my own young rider as she learned to pedal and coast without a steadying hand on the seat behind her and saw in her face a thousand shades of joy. Riding a bike makes her feel strong and free. That joy and strength is what I hope to have captured in Born to Ride, and in doing so, pay homage to early wheelwomen and their relentless courage and sense of fun.

“To men, the bicycle in the beginning was merely a new toy, another machine added to the long list of devices they knew in their work and play. To women, it was a steed upon which they rode into a new world.”—Munsey’s Magazine, 1896.

For more about the remarkable history of wheelwomen, read Sue Macy’s seminal book Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way).

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our review of Born to Ride.