Unshakable Eleanor: How Our 32nd First Lady Used Her Voice to Fight for Human Rights

From Michelle Markel, the award-winning author of Brave Girl, and acclaimed illustrator Alejandro Mesa comes a spirited and inspiring picture book biography of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

Before she became First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt was a girl trying to find her voice.

As a young orphan, she was shy and made to feel like a failure. But every night, Eleanor would read her father’s letters, full of love and belief in her, and she used his words to help her face her fears.

She took them to school across the sea, where she excelled at her studies and helped other girls with theirs. And back to New York, where she volunteered in immigrant communities.

Using her voice to help others gave her courage. Eleanor began speaking out in bigger ways.

When her husband, Franklin, became president, she worked with—and learned from—leaders of marginalized groups, using her standing to fight for workers, women, and people of color. Every victory, big and small, drove Eleanor to do more.

Unshakable Eleanor is the powerful story of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s journey to use her voice through helping others find their own.

Michelle Markel loves writing narrative nonfiction. She’s the author of Brave Girl, which won the Bank Street Flora Stieglitz Straus Award and the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award for Younger Children, and was also chosen as an NCTE Orbis Pictus Honor Book. Some of her recent titles include Hillary Rodham Clinton: Some Girls Are Born to Lead (on the Amelia Bloomer Project List of feminist literature) and Balderdash!: John Newbery and the Boisterous Birth of Children’s Books. She lives in Woodland Hills, California. You can visit her online at michellemarkel.com.

Alejandro Mesa was born in Soatá, a little town in Colombia. He is an illustrator of children’s books. Alejandro has also been a character designer for animation in the Netflix series Legend Quest. He works from his small but cozy studio in Bogotá, Colombia, where he lives with his wife and their Frenchie, Flora.