Maria Takes a Stand

Reviewed by Sara McGinn (age 9) for Reader Views (10/08) "Maria Takes a Stand" by Norma Jean Lutz is about a 12-year-old girl named Maria who lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota during the fight for women's rights. This book is about her experiences during this time. Maria strongly believes that women should have rights so she decides to help out. She gathers girls for the women's rights' parade and helps with the Suffragette group's fundraiser. Besides helping the women's rights cause, she also faces a challenge as a young German-American during a time when the United States was in a war with Germany. My favorite thing about this book is when Maria becomes a newsboy even though girls are not supposed to be newsboys back then. Maria is very brave and daring. I like that! I enjoyed the part where she helped some orphaned newsboys as well. I also learned how badly women wanted their rights in 1914. "Maria Takes a Stand" by Norma Jean Lutz was wonderfully interesting! The author did a wonderful job. I would re-write the second and third chapter to make them more interesting. I always prefer more action in the stories I read! The book had lots of words I did not understand so I got lots of practice using the dictionary. Because of this, I think the book should be recommended for kids who do not mind stopping to look up the definitions of some words.