CASE STUDY: Visual Metaphors

and Ideology in non-fiction

For this analysis we will took close to Jonah Winter’s “Lilian’s
Right to Vote: a Celebration of the Voting Rights Act of 1965
(2015)
Bibliography of the author :

Jonah Winter is the award-winning, celebrated

author of over 40 nonfiction picture books,
including New York Times bestseller,
BARACK. His book about racial injustice and
voting rights, LILLIAN'S RIGHT TO VOTE,
was a 2016 Jane Addams Award Honor Book
and a 2015 Kirkus Prize finalist. A poet, painter,
musician, and cook, Jonah Winter divides his
time between New York City and a small town
in Pennsylvania.
An elderly African American
woman, en route to vote, remembers
her family’s tumultuous voting
history in this picture book
publishing in time for the fiftieth
anniversary of the Voting Rights Act
of 1965.
As Lillian, a one-hundred-year-old African
American woman, makes a “long haul up a steep
hill” to her polling place, she sees more than trees
and sky—she sees her family’s history.

She sees the passage of the

Fifteenth Amendment and her great-
grandfather voting for the first time.
She sees her parents trying to register to vote. And she
sees herself marching in a protest from Selma to
Montgomery.
On her way to the polling place, a senior African-
American woman thinks about the people who wanted
to vote but were denied, starting with her great-great-
grandparents.
glossary:
en route
/ˌän ˈro͞ot/

adverb
during the course of a journey; on the way.
"he stopped in Turkey en route to Geneva"
Similar:
• on the way
• in transit
• on the journey
• during the journey
• Beginning with Darwin’s notorious chart listing reasons to wed and not to wed,
Heiligman has created a unique, flowing, and meticulously researched picture of the
controversial scientist and the effect of his marriage on his life and work. Using the
couple’s letters, diaries, and notebooks as well as documents and memoirs of their
relatives, friends, and critics, the author lets her subjects speak for themselves while
rounding out the story of their relationship with information about their time and place.
She shows how Darwin’s love for his intelligent, steadfast, and deeply religious cousin
was an important factor in his scientific work-pushing him to document his theory of
natural selection for decades before publishing it with great trepidation. Just as the pair
embodied a marriage of science and religion, this book weaves together the chronicle
of the development of a major scientific theory with a story of true love. Published for
young adults, this title will be equally interesting to adults drawn to revisit Darwin on his
200th birthday."—School Library Journal (starred review)
INTERNET RESOURCES :

www.jonahwinter.com
• Kids in the House. The U.S. House of Representatives website
introduces concepts of government to children.
http://kids.clerk.house.gov/
• Growing Voters. Created by a Lesley College professor with
lesson plans and resources for K–12 about voting.
http://www.growingvoters.org/
• Civics. Nonprofit with educational resources to prepare the
next generation of students to become knowledgeable and
engaged citizens. Founded by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
https://www.icivics.org/
• Teaching Tolerance. This website from the nonprofit Southern
Poverty Law Center offers a wide range of classroom resources
and lesson plans at all levels about tolerance, racism, and
related subjects. http://www.tolerance.org/