New Books In Biography

Michelle Markel, an award-winning author and former journalist who has written for The Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times, talks about books she’s written about two strong and brave women Clara Lemlich and Hillary Rodham Clinton. The first book, Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers Strike of 1909 (Balzer + Bray, 2013), is illustrated by Caldecott Honor Artist Melissa Sweet and tells the story of Clara Lemlich, a young Ukrainian immigrant who led the largest strike of women workers in U.S. history. The book follows the plight of immigrants in America in the early 1900s, tackling topics like activism and the U.S. garment industry, and includes an extensive bibliography and authors notes about the garment industry at that time. Markel’s book, Hillary Rodham Clinton: Some Girls Are Born to Lead (Balzer + Bray, 2016), is about the woman we’ve all come to know and who, like Clara Lemlich sixty years earlier, has refused to accept the status quo of women in society and in the workplace. Published in J