Dangerous Jane by Susanne Slade, illustrated by Alice Ratterree
How is it that I have gone my whole life without knowing who Jane Addams, the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize was? Yet, like so many books that cross my desk, Dangerous Jane, written by Suzanne Slade and illustrated by Alice Ratterree, made it into my hands at just the right time.
Born in Illinois in 1860, Jane Addams was witness to suffering and poverty. At the age of three, the same year her mother died, she contracted tuberculosis of the spine (enduring pneumonia, kidney problems, a heart attack, cancer and more illnesses throughout her seventy-five years of life). And, while she was born into a prosperous family, a business trip with her father exposed Jane to the effects of poverty as they passed through the poor side of a town. Slade writes,
Jane's heart ached, a strong, familiar ache. She knew what it felt to be sad, rejected, without hope. Jane wanted to help those families. But their problems were too big for a small girl to fix. So Jane promised herself - when she grew up, she would buy a big house to share with people in need.

With the start of WWI, Jane knew that pain and suffering would increase and she was driven to act. She formed the Women's Peace Party and was, at a meeting three thousand strong in 1915 in Washington DC, elected president. Traveling overseas and through war zones, Jane led 1,500 women from twelve countries at the International Congress of Women in the Netherlands where twenty resolutions, including the "Conference of Neutrals," were passed. Jane and the other leaders then took their resolutions to the leaders of the countries at war.

Jane returned to an America that begun to see her as suspicious and a traitor for helping raise money for starving children overseas as well as for her pacifist, anti-war stance. In 1919, the FBI named her "the Most Dangerous Woman in America." Twelve years later, she became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Slade begins the back matter on Addams with this quote:
Nothing could be worse than the fear that one has given up too soon, and had left one effort unexpended which might have saved the world.

Source: Review Copy