About This Book:
Go exploring with Barbara Hillary, the first Black woman to set foot on both the North and South Poles in this thrilling and inspiring picture book biography about perseverance, imagination, and following your dreams.
As a young girl, Barbara Hillary imagined a life of adventure. Despite facing hardships in her childhood and illness as an adult, she never gave up on her dream: to travel the world and explore hard-to-reach places. So, at age seventy-five, she became the first Black woman to set foot on the North Pole. Less than four years later, she did the same at the South Pole.
Barbara loved everything the world has to offer. During her travels, she discovered that the remote places she cared so much about were threatened by climate change. From then on, she dedicated herself to saving the planet for future generations. She never let her age—or anything else—stop her until she stood at the top of the world!
*Review Contributed By Karen Yingling, Staff Reviewer*
Inspirational Life Goals
Williams’ illustrations are very realistic and give a good sense of place. Barbara herself looks determined but happy, and I was amazed at how atmospheric the drawings of vast amounts of snow were! This would make a great read aloud for older classes who are working on persistence and need a good example of “grit”.
This is a good travel companion for books like Grimes and Lewis’ Talking About Bessie, Christensen’s
The Daring Nellie Bly, Fern and McCully’s Dare the Wind: The Record-breaking Voyage of Eleanor Prentiss and the Flying Cloud, and Hopkinson and Alcorn’s Keep On!: The Story of Matthew Henson, Co-Discoverer of the North Pole.
