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Brown has proven to be the graphic novel gold standard in fact-driven, deeply humane middle-grade history. Here, he's managed to hit upon a yet more urgent and relevant topic than the vaccine-centered previous volume (Shot in the Arm, 2021). Abigail Adams (John’s wife) knowledgeably guides readers from the dawn of leadership itself—violence-born and violence-perpetuated—through the burgeoning concept of Greek demokratia (“people power”) and non-European republics into the birth of American democracy. The arc of history will be familiar to most readers, but Brown never skimps on crucial, lesser-considered nuances. His history may move at a breakneck pace, but he preserves details for our fascination, personified by such unsung figures as tidy Jacob Shallus, vile Roger Taney, pioneering Hiram Revels, and righteous Virginia Minor. And never in the face of the Big Idea’s greatness does he let slip away the struggle of women and Black, Asian, or Indigenous people. Indeed, the final third of the book is almost exclusively devoted to the nation’s struggle for equality. There’s a lot here, but the dense, typed-font chunks of explanation are considerably leavened by Brown’s loose, jaunty Schoolhouse Rock–style art, punctuated by the occasional dramatic double-splash page. Addressing the subject’s urgency, Brown reminds readers that the “grand tower” of our perfect union is perpetually being torn down and—hopefully—rebuilt. Includes ample illuminating back matter.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A graphic-novel history of the democratic ideal and its slow, difficult progress toward realization in the United States. Following the practice of the three previous Big Ideas titles, Brown chooses a historical figure to conduct his tour, and he outdoes himself here by picking Abigail Adams—a brilliant, self-educated woman whose famous dictum to her husband, John, to “Remember the Ladies” positions her well to remember Native Americans, immigrants, and people of African descent as she chronicles the long struggle to build a “more Perfect Union,” from the principles of equal rights for all and government through “consent of the governed.” If her opening review of prehistoric linkages between the inventions of agriculture, cities, and governmental systems has been challenged recently, it holds in broad outline and sets up subsequent surveys of empires worldwide, of Athenian democracy, of republics from Rome to the Iroquois Confederacy, and of significant documents about rights such as the 13th-century Manden Charter in West Africa. She addresses the outrageous racist compromises built into our Constitution (“No, I’m not making it up”) and subsequent watermarks both low, like the Dred Scott Decision, and high, up to Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream of an equitable future. In the loosely drawn panels, dark- and olive-complexioned men and women are steadily present to reinforce the message that, yes, they, too, belong in this aspirational, still unfinished story. Engagingly informal, more cogent than ever, and rich in rare facts and insights. (timeline, information on Abigail Adams, endnotes, bibliography, author’s note, index) (Graphic nonfiction. 9-11) Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.