About the Author:
Glenna Lang's previous work includes illustrations for four classic poems with David R. Godine. She wrote and illustrated the award-winning Looking Out for Sarah. Although she grew up in New York City, she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and teaches at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Marjory Wunsch has illustrated and written numerous children's books. While studying architecture, she encountered problems of urban design, rehabilitation of old buildings, and the ideas of Jane Jacobs. Marjory and her husband live in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Review:
Jacobs had developed her ideas about what makes cities work from looking around and keeping her eyes open. As a young woman in Manhattan, she was fascinated by the symbols stamped on the city s ubiquitous manhole covers and had learned to recognize each one for its function. Later, as a writer for magazines like Architectural Forum, she would attend official briefings on the urban renewal projects then viewed as the solution to aging cities.
On one occasion, Jacobs toured Philadelphia with Edmund Bacon, a well-known city planner; she later described how the tour began in a poor but lively neighborhood, where people chatted on front stoops and children played in the street. Bacon proudly showed Jane a new high-rise public housing project one street away, Lang and Wunsch write. Looking around, she sensed that something was not right. While the people on the messy crowded street seemed to be enjoying themselves and each other, Jane saw that the tidy streets of the new project were empty, except for a little boy kicking a tire. . . . Perhaps the schemes that looked so good to the architects and planners were not really working.
It was a revolutionary idea. The Death and Life of Great American Cities, published to critical acclaim in 1961, had an immediate impact and forever changed the way people looked at the problems of cities.
No stodgy history texts, Claudette Colvin and Genius of Common Sense throb with their heroines passionate struggles. They are handsome books, loaded with primary sources like photographs and contemporary news accounts that bring alive these stories for any teenager wondering how she can make a difference in the world.
As the bumper sticker says: Well-Âbehaved women rarely make history. --Ruth Coniff, The New York Times
The theories of Jane Jacobs ... should be in the curriculums of grades 7 and 8, her books should be must-reads in all high schools, and her ideas should be discussed in all colleges and universities. Genius of Common Sense is not only a refreshing concept but also a delightful read ... a little gem of a book.... --Bernard Poulin, Toronto Globe and Mail
Included on the New York Times List of Notable Children's Books 2009 --New York Times
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