No Steps Behind: Beate Sirota Gordon's Battle for Women's Rights in Japan

by Jeff Gottesfeld, Shiella Witanto (Illustrator)

Overview

Discover the unlikely story of Beate Sirota Gordon, a young woman who grew up in Japan and returned as a translator working for the American military after WWII. Fluent in Japanese language and culture, she was assigned to work with the delegation writing the new post-war constitution. Thanks to her bravery in speaking up for the women of Japan, the new constitution ended up including equal rights for all women.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781939547552
Publisher:	Creston Books
Publication date:	03/03/2020
Pages:	44
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.25(h) x (d)
Lexile:	840L (what's this?)
Age Range:	9 - 10 Years

About the Author

Jeff Gottesfeld writes for page, stage, screen, and television. He's won many awards, including ones from the American Library Association, the Association of Jewish Libraries, and the Writer's Guild. His most recent title The Christmas Mitzvah was named a Sydney Taylor Honor Book. He currently lives in Los Angeles.

Shiella Witanto draws or paints all day long. She grew up in Indonesia, where her hometown of Bandung has the best bowl of chicken noodles in the world, and now lives in San Francisco.

Editorial Reviews

"In an era when women are finally being recognized for their important accomplishments, this title adds one more name to the list."—School Library Journal

From the Publisher

2019-12-08
The Japanese women's suffrage movement as viewed through the accomplishments of a remarkable immigrant.

Beate Sirota Gordon (1923-2012), daughter of Russian and Austrian Jews, moved at the age of 5 with her family to Tokyo, where she was immersed in Japanese language and culture. The outbreak of World War II formed a backdrop to college studies in California that opened her eyes to gender equality. In 1945, Gordon returned to Japan as an interpreter for the occupying U.S. Army. There, she drafted clauses for the new Japanese Constitution that granted Japanese women suffrage as well as protection from gender-based discrimination. Gordon's story is a remarkable tribute to the value of bilingualism, cross-cultural competency, and courageous commitment to justice. Unfortunately, Japanese feminists' efforts—which suffered setbacks due to economic depression and the outbreak of war—are touched upon only glancingly, and the grinding poverty that led to fathers' selling "daughters like fish at the market" is not mentioned. The book risks being read as a white-savior narrative in which the wretched Japanese were reformed by an enlightened foreigner importing ideas from a culture that was in fact facing struggles of its own; by saying little about the legal and cultural barriers to equality that many Americans also faced, readers are left without valuable historical context. The richly colored paintings uplift the story, conveying strong emotion and drama through expressive facial expressions and varied perspectives.

Valuable and inspiring, though lacking needed context. (author's note, references, bibliographic notes, timeline) (Picture book/biography. 7-11)

Kirkus Reviews