Tillie The Terrible Swede by Sue Stauffacher

History and childrens’ books.  When I see a book such as, Tillie The Terrible Swede, combining two of my favorite things in life I obviously have to pick it up.  Before reading this book I had never heard of Tillie Anderson.  I should have, though, because she did a lot for women’s rights.  She was an immigrant who came to America and fell in love with competitive bicycle racing.  In the late 19^th century, riding a bike and wearing pants was not considered proper behavior for ladies but Tillie did it anyways.  She broke many bicycle racing records throughout her life.  I truly enjoyed reading about Tillie’s bravery and zest for life and the story is so well done that children will enjoy it too.  What I liked most about Tillie, besides her name which I love, is that she did not stop racing after she got married.  It truly is an empowering historical story.  I did not, however, find the illustrations to be that great.  I would say they were mediocre at best.  The faces on the characters were just two dots and some lines.  It just didn’t seem like a lot of care was taken with the illustrations.
            The use of this book in the classroom is pretty straightforward.   I would use it to teach about the Womens’ Rights Movement.  I think the topic would need to be introduced before the story was read.  I would introduce the topic by saying, “Even though women  can do almost everything men can do now days, it wasn’t always this way.  Women used to have to follow very strict rules and were not allowed to do many things, like vote or get good jobs.  We are glad that things have changed today but it was not an easy process.  Woman had to work very hard to be able to do have these things we call rights.”  I would then go on to explain about human rights by having the children brainstorm things that they think everyone should be allowed to do.  The day I read this story to the class I think it would be fun to dress up as Tillie Anderson and ride a bicycle into the classroom.  When the teacher does things like this I think it makes them very memorable for the kids and they are more likely to transfer the information to long term memory.   I think it would be good to follow-up this story by having children research another suffragist.  When children spend time doing their own research on things, they feel more invested, and thus, are more likely to remember the information.   

Year Published: 2011          Illustrator: Sarah McMenemy