I am Jane Goodall (Ordinary People Change the World)

I purchased this for my niece for Christmas. She is a miniature Jane Goodall in the making, although she has taken up the cause for rhinos. I read through it before I gave wrapped it and it was very interesting and I learned a lot from it!

My favorite yet of the Ordinary People series. A meaningful look at the extraordinary life of a woman who chose to look at animals differently. What a great role model! This book is already on regular rotation with my kids. Love what Meltzer is doing with this series -- these are the people we want our kids to look up to!

We are using this as part of our Kindergarten social studies curriculum to introduce famous humanitarians, activists, and scientists. These book capture their attention and because they are drawn as children, kids can relate. They are chalk full of interesting people and their unique characters that break the mold. I think having these as a reference point to people who were not always loved by society and worked through much opposition in life has helped reiterate that fitting into the standard mold is not all it's cracked up to be and allows that to feel good about them being who they are and finding comfort in that. We love this series and can't wait for more.

I heard a few radio interviews about this line of books. The author is really funny and he brings to light things we never knew about these famous figures.
Jane Goodall is still around and advocating for animals and a great representation of what you can do in life. She didn't have the education or background to go do animal research. However, she did have the guts and the motivation to go for it and get that job. I'm glad there is a book that helps show kids, girls especially, that they can do amazing things with mainly the drive to do so.
Also, it doesn't hurt that these books are illustrated by the Calvin and Hobbs cartoonist. Spoiler: You can spot one of them in the book! These bring back memories of reading the comics when I was little and now I can read these books to my little ones.

The book is good, except the three parts concentrate on how powerless female is. My daughters are still little (3 and 5). I want them to hear the inspiring parts that how hardworking Jane Goodall is and how she thinks outside the box, instead of reinforcing those gender stereotypes into their young mind. I ended up cover those lines myself. I hope those parts can be eliminated in the next edition.

I think this is my favorite in the Ordinary People Change the World series (so far!). A beautiful reminder of the power of passion and persistence. I love that Goodall pursued her goals, never backing down from the challenges she faced, including gender prejudice and lack of support for her methods. Also, it is seriously awesome that, because she could not travel to Africa without a female companion, her mother accompanied her!

This is a great little picture book/graphic novel sharing the life of Dr. Jane Goodall by Brad Meltzer. Readers are taken from a young animal loving Jane to the world renowned scientist she is today. The end of the book has a timeline of her life and some real photographs from her life, which are a great addition to the book to really show children that Dr. Goodall is real and not just a character in a story. The illustrations by Christopher Eliopoulos are fun and engaging.

The only criticism that I have is that the story acknowledges when she started she has no college education, but then skips to her being a doctor later in the story, but it completely glosses over the fact that she went to Cambridge for her PhD in Ethnology. The only mention of this is in the timeline at the end. I wish the author would have mentioned this in the story and not just in the timeline at the end. The book is great overall though and I still give it a big thumbs up. ~The Librarian Uncle