The daring Nellie Bly: America's star reporter

Gr. 3-5, younger for reading aloud. This picture book for older readers tells Nellie Bly's fabulous story: a riches-to-rags childhood; a job at the Pittsburgh Dispatch when no woman had such a thing; a move to New York, where she went undercover in an insane asylum and then wrote the story for the New York World. She bested the fictional heroules Verne by going around the world--alone-- in 72 days, and she was a war correspondent during World War I. In an easy-to-read style, Christensen lets Bly's story tell itself, and her art, as it was in Woody Guthrie: Poet of the People (2001), is powerful and rich in color. She uses strong black line to outline figures, add detail, and emphasize vivid facial expression in oversize pictures that are full of movement and action. Children will thrill to the true-life story. --GraceAnne DeCandido Copyright 2003 Booklist

Christensen (Woody Guthrie) crafts an intriguing introduction to a larger-than-life figure in this attractive picture book biography. Born in 1864, Elizabeth Cochran (better known by her pen name, Nellie Bly) faced dim career prospects. Bly fell into journalism almost by accident at age 20, when her spirited letter to a local newspaper caught the editor's eye. In lucid prose, Christensen traces Bly's career as an investigative journalist, groundbreaking woman war correspondent (at 50, during WWI) and "stunt reporter" who once got herself committed to a women's insane asylum in order to expose its abysmal conditions. However, younger readers may lack the historical context to appreciate the nature of Bly's crusades. The author reserves the core of the book for Bly's most famous stunt: her successful attempt, in 1889, to break the fictional travel record of Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days (Bly did it in 72 days). Using pen and ink washed with muted color, Christensen creates an appropriately Victorian mood, and her busy cross-hatching echoes the style employed by newspaper artists of the day. She intersperses full-spread vistas with smaller framed scenes, while Bly's plucky world tour unfolds through a series of maps overlaid with drawn tickets, postcards, coins and the like. Although Bly the individual remains elusive here, readers will come away with an appreciation of her many feats. Ages 6-12. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Gr 2-5-Born in 1864, Bly (christened Elizabeth Jane Cochran) lived at a time when opportunities for women were extremely limited. Not only did she overcome overwhelming obstacles to become one of the first "serious" female newspaper reporters, but she also became one of the most well known. Her expos?s on the discriminatory work practices toward women at several factories and the deplorable condition of a city-run mental institution made her famous, but her historic 72-day journey around the world made her a folk hero. Large, colorful, pen-and-ink illustrations cover almost every page, and a four-page world map helps readers follow the journalist's round-the-world jaunt. Appropriately enough, this terrific biography reads like an adventure story. Perfect for read-alouds, the book gives just enough information to tell a good tale, while providing inspiration for the curious to seek out more material about this fascinating woman.-Sue Morgan, Tom Kitayama Elementary School, Union City, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(Intermediate) A young woman, satchel in hand, waves gaily from the jacket of this middle-grade biography, inviting potential readers to join her on a great journey, both literally around the world and metaphorically through her life. It's a trip worth taking. Born at the end of the Civil War when women were considered weaker, more needy, and less clever than men, Bly defied all three cliches. Through luck and pluck she found work as a female reporter and soon became a household name, reporting on the social conditions of women and children, going undercover as a patient in the Women's Lunatic Asylum, and staging an eighty-day trip around the world. While Christensen touches on Bly's early life and the beginnings of her career, it is the around-the-world journey that forms the literary and visual climax of the story. Bly's motto, ""Energy rightly applied and directed will accomplish anything,"" marks her race against the clock and the rapid pacing of her adventure. Two double-page maps, decorated with faux coins, tickets, and stamps suggestive of the times, highlight important stops and trace her route, which is feverishly related in the text. Other illustrations, dense, dark, scratchy pen-and-inks, suggest Victorian melodrama--although as played out by a woman of action rather than a damsel in distress. A final montage centering the adult Bly among the women and children who served as subjects of her exposes and later crusades reminds readers of her powerful voice and of those ""who had no friend but Nellie Bly."" Appended with a chronology, a bibliography, and a videography. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

Christensen unabashedly positions Nellie Bly in the pantheon of feminist heroes. She "grew up competing with two older brothers," "learned the art of standing out from the crowd" from her mother, and in the course of a spectacular journalistic career highlighted by a less-than-80-day solo jaunt around the world, exposÉs of dreadful conditions in a New York asylum, and a stint as correspondent in WWI, she "changed how the world viewed women and paved the way for the young women who followed." Despite the hyperbole, this account of that career's high spots makes riveting reading, and a perfect lead-in to the more detailed accounts offered in the concluding bibliography. The author illustrates Bly's exploits with vigorously drawn scenes that resemble period newspaper engravings. Nary a dull moment in this rousing profile. (chronology, bibliography, videography) (Picture book/biography. 8-10) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Gr. 3-5, younger for reading aloud. This picture book for older readers tells Nellie Bly's fabulous story: a riches-to-rags childhood; a job at the Pittsburgh Dispatch when no woman had such a thing; a move to New York, where she went undercover in an insane asylum and then wrote the story for the New York World. She bested the fictional hero Jules Verne by going around the world--alone-- in 72 days, and she was a war correspondent during World War I. In an easy-to-read style, Christensen lets Bly's story tell itself, and her art, as it was in Woody Guthrie: Poet of the People (2001), is powerful and rich in color. She uses strong black line to outline figures, add detail, and emphasize vivid facial expression in oversize pictures that are full of movement and action. Children will thrill to the true-life story. ((Reviewed September 1, 2003)) Copyright 2003 Booklist Reviews

Christensen (Woody Guthrie) crafts an intriguing introduction to a larger-than-life figure in this attractive picture book biography. Born in 1864, Elizabeth Cochran (better known by her pen name, Nellie Bly) faced dim career prospects. Bly fell into journalism almost by accident at age 20, when her spirited letter to a local newspaper caught the editor's eye. In lucid prose, Christensen traces Bly's career as an investigative journalist, groundbreaking woman war correspondent (at 50, during WWI) and "stunt reporter" who once got herself committed to a women's insane asylum in order to expose its abysmal conditions. However, younger readers may lack the historical context to appreciate the nature of Bly's crusades. The author reserves the core of the book for Bly's most famous stunt: her successful attempt, in 1889, to break the fictional travel record of Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days (Bly did it in 72 days). Using pen and ink washed with muted color, Christensen creates an appropriately Victorian mood, and her busy cross-hatching echoes the style employed by newspaper artists of the day. She intersperses full-spread vistas with smaller framed scenes, while Bly's plucky world tour unfolds through a series of maps overlaid with drawn tickets, postcards, coins and the like. Although Bly the individual remains elusive here, readers will come away with an appreciation of her many feats. Ages 6-12. (Oct.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Gr 2-5-Born in 1864, Bly (christened Elizabeth Jane Cochran) lived at a time when opportunities for women were extremely limited. Not only did she overcome overwhelming obstacles to become one of the first "serious" female newspaper reporters, but she also became one of the most well known. Her exposés on the discriminatory work practices toward women at several factories and the deplorable condition of a city-run mental institution made her famous, but her historic 72-day journey around the world made her a folk hero. Large, colorful, pen-and-ink illustrations cover almost every page, and a four-page world map helps readers follow the journalist's round-the-world jaunt. Appropriately enough, this terrific biography reads like an adventure story. Perfect for read-alouds, the book gives just enough information to tell a good tale, while providing inspiration for the curious to seek out more material about this fascinating woman.-Sue Morgan, Tom Kitayama Elementary School, Union City, CA Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.