Elizabeth Warren's Big, Bold Plans

This picture book biography of U.S. senator and presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren begins with her childhood in Oklahoma, where she discovers how rewarding helping others is as she tutors struggling classmates in reading. Inspired to become a teacher, she faces setbacks in her journey—particularly financial difficulties at home when her father suffers a heart attack and the family struggles to keep up with bills. She persists with her big plans, which lead her eventually to earn a law degree—while pregnant with her second child—teach law, and become a senator and presidential candidate, all motivated by the desire crystallized early in her life to help others. Thompson focuses the biography on Warren’s life and motivations and, while detailing her life in politics, avoids making it overtly political, though both her narrative and Chapman’s illustrations are praising. Most of the story addresses external challenges Warren overcame, though Thompson remarks in her Author’s Note that Warren has also made mistakes that she has acknowledged and overcome—more discussion of at least one such instance would have helped Warren’s inspirational accomplishments be even more encouraging and relatable to young readers.