Well-Dressed Role Models

de Gale Eaton

"Well-Dressed Role Models: The Portrayal of Women in Biographies for Children explores juvenile biographies of women, a genre defined here as a book dealing with the whole or partial life of an individual and reviewed as nonfiction for readers in elementary, middle, or junior high school. Beginning with a survey of material on Elizabeth Tudor published in England and the United States between 1852 and 2002, Gale Eaton scrutinizes thirty-four books - juvenile biographies, histories, and collected biographies - for trends in both content and rhetoric. She continues to examine readings of books published in the United States in the years 1946, 1971, and 1996 and presents a penetrating analysis of a genre that serves the needs of youth. Eaton concludes that juvenile biographies make role models out of women who, in many cases, never would have become famous by following rules for "good girls." By choice of subject and emphasis, their authors dress the life stories of real women in the appropriate values of new generations. Well-Dressed Role Models also includes annotated book lists for each of the three years analyzed to facilitate further reading."--Jacket.