Synopses & Reviews
Set in the late 1800s, when the Mississippi River was our country's grand highway, and the kind of the road was the steamboat, this fascinating picture-book biography tells the true story of Blanche Leathers, the first woman steamboat captain. Even as a young girl Blanche knew that navigating the mighty Mississippi required a special kind of river sense. But that didn't deter her. Blanche loved the Mississippi and held on to her dream. Years later this determined young woman took her pilot's exam, becoming the first woman to captain a steamboat. Judith Heide Gilliland's lyrical text and Holly Meade's distinctive art capture life on the Mississippi and the glory of the steamboat as they tell the story of a young girl who became a legend on the river when piloting one of these grand boats was the dream of boys everywhere.
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Ögracefully told and smashingly illustratedÖ (Orlando Sentinel)
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(A) high-spirited picture book. (Instructor)
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This lively book offers a ship-shape model of the best in picture-book biography. (The Horn Book Magazine)
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Colorful, eye-catching illustrations made of cut paper and paint capture some of the many aspects of the mighty river and life alongside it. (Manchester Journal Inquirer)
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Meade's cut-paper and painted illustrations are animated and exciting. (Columbus Dispatch)
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...a charming tale of the first woman to captain a steamboat... (Boston Globe)
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A suspenseful and inspirational historical portrait. (Los Angeles Times)
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Growing up in the south during the post-Civil War years, Blanche Douglas loved the Mississippi River, 'calm or wind. Nothing humdrum about it!' And there was nothing humdrum about spirited Blanche, who dreamt of someday becoming a steamboat captain, even though she's told that 'girls don't grow up to be steamboatmen.' Blanche courageously pursued her dream, and when she married a steamboat captain, he encouraged her to learn the river and take the exam necessary to earn her license. This beautifully written picture-book biography of America's first female steamboat captain is filled with drama, underscored by the use of the present tense. There's also a marvelous sense of the great river in all of its moods and characters: sometimes it's 'a wild place' or a 'foggy phantom'; sometimes its a 'trickster,' a 'graveyard.' Sometimes it's even a book, and as Blanche knows, 'Captains who don't read carefully lose their boats and their passengers to the muddy waters.' Meade's lavish, cut-paper pictures are a splendid celebration of the river and of the steamboats, those 'floating birthday cakes' that continue to fire the imagination. (Booklist, Starred Review, March 15, 2000 )
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At eight years old, Blanche Douglas is fascinated by the Mississippi and precociously aware that its surface masks myriad secrets; at twelve she is determined to become a steamboat captain. Marriage at twenty-one to Captain Leathers does nothing to alter her dream; in fact, life aboard the Natchez allows her to study the river's vagaries night and day ('A faint shadow: That means WATCH OUT, a sandbar lurks below, waiting to capture any boat that strays too near!'). With the apparent support of her husband, Blanche passes the oral exam in New Orleans, moves on to the navigational exam in which she must pilot the steamboat upstream on 'a starless, moonless night, black as ink,' and earns the distinction of becoming, in 1894, the first woman steamboat captain in the country. Meade's paint and collage compositions capture Blanche in all her dreaminess and determination and the Mississippi in its many moods. Particularly effective are night scenes in which the Natchez floats between nearly indistinguishable indigos of river and sky, and the spread in which self-confident Blanche, backed by fiery orange, charts a stretch of river hazards for a punctilious board of examiners who appear as black silhouettes in the foreground. Blanche Leathers arrives just in time to join her pioneering sister in the Women's History Month display. (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books)
Review
Another plucky heroine takes the helm in a picture-book biography of a true woman hero from our past: the country's first female steamboat captain. Illustrator Holly Meade's cover art tells the story: the young Blanche stands poised and determined atop the pilot house; beside her, the oversized pilot's wheel awaits her command. Gilliland's text portrays the river-loving Blanche fist as an eight-year-old, then at twelve, sixteen, and as a young woman who marries, not unexpectedly, Captain Leathers of the glamorous Natchez, 'the grandest and fastest steamboat on the Mississippi.' Her husband first teaches the eager Blanche the mysterious, unpredictable ways of the river, a force of nature characterized with great intensity and variation by Meade; he then allows her to pilot the Natchez. When she declares her childhood dream to captain a steamboat, her surprised but supportive husband replies, 'And a very good captain you would make, too!' Occasional black silhouettes accent the exuberantly colored cut-paper art, which effectively realizes the three central characters of the story: Blanche, the river, and the romantic steamboat itself, 'a floating birthday cake.' An afterword offers additional bits of information about the real Blanche Douglas and 'the steamboat's days of glory.' This lively book offers a ship-shape model of the best in picture-book biography. (The Horn Book Review)
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Gilliland's story flows as swiftly and assuredly as the Mississippi river on which it is set, recounting Blanche Douglas' childhood dream -- and its realization -- to be the first woman steamboat captain. The author introduces Blanche as an eight-year-old in 1868 as she watches the approaching vessel from from the riverbank and captures the girl's infatuation: "STEAMBOAT! Big and tall, a floating birthday cake. It looks like a celebration." Made (Hush!) similarly creates the backdrop for Blanche's lifelong love affair with the covered boat in a collage spread of the girl high in a treetop with the best vantage point for spotting the steamer. The cutouts of leaves and birds inventively conjure the illusion of distance and a heightened sense of drama -- as if Blanche is a player on a stage set. Though Captain Blackstone, who pilots that first steamboat, scoffs at Blanche's announcement that she wants to be a captain like him someday ("Girls don't grow up to be steamboatmen."), 26 years later, he would be among the examiners to test Blanche and pronounce her a fully fledged "steamboatmen ". Together, Gilliland and Meade convincingly expose the mysteries of the Mississippi (as an underwater graveyard of sunken boats, in its invisibility during fog and storms, etc.), and two climactic collages in midnight blue and black tones detail Blanche's triumphant test run on a moonless night. A suspenseful and inspirational historical portrait. Age 6-9. (Publishers Weekly, Starred Review)
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Gilliland tells the tale of the Mississippi's first licensed woman steamboat captain not as an instance of prejudice overcome, but as a celebration of the rewards of years-long, focused concentration on a goal. Born in 1860, Blanche fixes on her chosen career at 12, later marries the captain of the Natchez, and persuades him to teach her all that a captain needs to know about the river's turns and currents, moods and hidden hazards. After years of hard study and a final exam that really tests her skill and courage, she winds over a panel of skeptical riverboat captains, and accompanied by boatloads of cheering fans, proudly takes the Natchez upriver, wheel in one hand, business card in the other. Meade mixes paint, silhouettes, and pieces of strongly patterned paper to create large, bright scenes of majestic riverboats, bustling docks, and treacherous-looking waters. It's a colorful, triumphant tale, as much about the river itself as one who braved it. (Kirkus Reviews)
Synopsis
Lyrical text and whimsical, full-color illustrations describe how Blanche Douglas Leathers studied the Mississippi River and passed the test to become a steamboat captain in 1894.
About the Author
Judith Heide Gilliland was inspired to write about Blanche Leathers when she came upon an old photograph of her with the caption "First Woman Steamboat Captain." To research Steamboat!, the author and illustrator went to New Orleans, where they "walked in Blanche's footsteps" -- saw her pilot's license and the grand tea sets and fancy tableware she used on board the Natchez, and stood at the helm of the Natchez IX. Judith Gilliland is the author of several notable picture books, including The Day of Ahmed's Secret and The House of Wisdom. She lives in Amherst, New Hampshire. Holly Meade has illustrated numerous popular and award-winning picture books, including Hush! by Minfong Ho, a Caldecott Honor Book, and Boss of the Plains by Laurie Carlson, which won the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Association Children's Book Award and was a Horn Book Fanfare Honor Book. She lives in Newburyport, Massachusetts.