Review of A Most Clever Girl: How Jane Austen Discovered Her Voice
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The Children’s Book Review
A Most Clever Girl: How Jane Austen Found Her Voice
Written by Jasmine A. Stirling
Illustrated by Vesper Stamper
Ages 4-12 | 48 Pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury Children’s Books | ISBN-13: 978-1547601103
What to Expect: Women’s history, literary history, biography.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Jane, who loved words and writing. She had a loving, supportive family, and even though it was unusual at the time for a girl to write at all, she wrote clever, witty, funny books. However, no matter how much she wrote, Jane knew something was missing from her writing. A series of traumatic events—her brothers left home, her home was sold, and her father died—filled Jane with grief and loneliness and she struggled hard to keep going. But soon, with the help of friends and family and her own determination, Jane found her words once more and became the best-selling author the world knows so well.
This biography is as witty, elegant, and engaging in its own way as the novelist whose story it tells. Peppered throughout with quotations from Jane Austen’s own novels, the narrative not only brings Jane’s story to life but also illustrates the way her writing depicted the world she lived in and was shaped by her experiences. It emphasizes how Jane herself embodied many of the characteristics that made her heroines so loved by readers, even as she negotiated the challenges of her era.
The text offers readers exciting new vocabulary to play with and language that is rich and evocative. Beautiful, soft pencil illustrations evoke the pastoral ideals of Georgian England, offering color and detail designed to invite the reader in for a closer look at the people and places that shaped the novels.
A Most Clever Girl: How Jane Austen Discovered Her Voice is a delightful picture book, perfect for readers who love words. Highly Recommended.
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About the Author
Jasmine A. Stirling is the debut author of A Most Clever Girl: How Jane Austen Discovered Her Voice, a picture book biography of Jane Austen about persistence and creative mastery. Jasmine lives on a cheerful street in San Francisco with her husband, two daughters, and their dog. From a young age, she loved to write poems and stories and worked her way through nearly every children’s book (and quite a few for grownups, too) in her local library. When she’s not writing, Jasmine can be found hiking in the fog, singing songs from old musicals, and fiddling with her camera.
Jasmine first fell in love with Jane Austen as a student at Oxford, where she read her favorite of Jane’s six masterful novels, Persuasion. A Most Clever Girl is her dream project, done with her dream team—award-winning illustrator Vesper Stamper and Bloomsbury Children’s Publishing. Jasmine also has a YA/New Adult history of the women’s suffrage movement out soon, titled We Demand An Equal Voice.
Visit www.jasmineastirling.com to get a free Jane Austen paper doll kit with the purchase of A Most Clever Girl. While you’re there, enter to win a Regency tea party gift basket!
Follow Jasmine on Instagram and Facebook@jasmine.a.stirling.author where she posts about kidlit and life with two young girls.
Dedicated Reviews allow authors and illustrators to gain prompt visibility for their work. This is a sponsored*, non-biased review of A Most Clever Girl: How Jane Austen Discovered Her Voice, by Jasmine A. Stirling and Vesper Stamper. Learn more about getting a book review …