I don’t remember the first time I heard about Door by Door: How Sarah McBride Became America’s First Openly Transgender Senator by Meeg Pincus and Meridth McKean Gimbel (the illustrator), but sometime early 2024 I decided to purchase a copy. I knew I had options with it if I did not want to keep it (donate to a library, give as a gift) and after reading, I decided I didn’t want to keep it all to myself, I wanted to share it. There are a few bumps where the story might have some missing information, or information I felt could have painted McBride more, but it is a good introduction to her.
One of the slight bumps was the format of the actual book. While picture books are a great way to introduce subjects, people or places, this time around it felt like it was almost too old of a subject for the “picture book crowd” and needed to be in a more traditional biography format. This is because the text is longer, there is little traditional action, and the illustrations (while lovey, cool colors and good details) are not “bouncing” around, capturing your attention be it as a reader or listening to. The age that would probably work best is around a strong seven to nine year old. Therefore, it might work well in a classroom setting better than a one-on-one level. Of course, if McBride is your senator, you have a transgender family member, or someone in your neighborhood is transitioning, it would be a nice way to allow a child to see how far they can go.
It is more of a biography written in a story format instead of a true biography. And as I said above, there could be more information (I would have liked to have seen more of her childhood), but it is a nice compilation of women’s history, political history and the GLBTQ community history.