Unraveling Freedom: The Battle for Democracy on the Home Front During World War I - Hardcover

Ann Bausum writes about US history for young people. Her books consistently earn prominent national recognition. Denied, Detained, Deported was named the 2010 Carter G. Woodson Book Award winner at the secondary school level from the National Council for the Social Studies. Muckrakers earned the Golden Kite Award as best nonfiction book of the year from the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Freedom Riders gained the Robert F. Sibert Honor designation from the American Library Association, and With Courage and Cloth received the Jane Addams Children's Book Award as the year's best book on social justice issues for older readers.

Ted Rall is an award-winning American columnist, syndicated cartoonist, and author. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, among hundreds of other publications. He is the writer and illustrator of Trump: A Graphic Biography, Bernie, and Snowden. To learn more, visit rall.com or follow @TedRall on Twitter.

*Starred Review* Writer of the Sibert Honor Book Freedom Riders (2006), Bausum looks at America during the WWI period, when fear and intolerance led to the persecution of German Americans, socialists, and peace activists. Beginning with the sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania by a German submarine, she discusses government propaganda and the mounting public intolerance, outrage, and violence against all things German. New sedition and espionage acts enabled officials to intimidate or imprison those who might disagree with their positions. Without belaboring the point, Bausum connects the dots between responses to the 1915 sinking of the Lusitania and the 2001 bombing of the World Trade Center. Although much of the detail in Bausum’s chapter on the Lusitania’s sinking seems irrelevant to the main theme, the book as a whole is well focused, well reasoned, and clearly written. Handsomely designed, it features color reproductions of period photos, drawings, paintings, and documents. Back matter includes citations, notes, a bibliography, lists of recommended resources, a detailed time line, and a useful “Guide to Wartime Presidents,” which identifies eight wartime periods in America and, for each, discusses whether (and how) freedom was curtailed and provides a presidential quote. A fascinating, informative book on a topic of perennial concern. Grades 8-11. --Carolyn Phelan