Vision of Beauty: The Story of Sarah Breedlove Walker [Hardcover]

Kathryn Lasky (Author), Nneka Bennett (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 5, 2000 | Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up

An inspiring picture-book biography of a woman who succeeded on her own terms.

Born December 23, 1867, Sarah Breedlove Walker was the youngest and first free-born child of Minerva and Owen Breedlove of Delta, Louisiana. As sharecroppers, their lives were hard, but slavery had ended, and the Breedlove family was free. And if you were free, you could dream.

VISION OF BEAUTY depicts Sarah Breedlove Walker's rise from a bleak world of poverty and discrimination to unprecedented success as an influential businesswoman and philanthropist. Orphaned at age seven, married and widowed by twenty, Sarah was a young mother struggling as a laundress when she began to lose her hair. Through tenacity and faith, she discovered her own cure, founding the phenomenally successful Mme. C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company. Representing a woman's ability to achieve economic independence, Madam Walker offered a vision of freedom and dignity for her people, and became a powerful role model for women and girls of all races and classes.

The story of a woman with the courage to dream--and the determination to build a better life for herself and her race.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lasky (A Brilliant Streak: The Making of Mark Twain; Science Fair Bunnies, reviewed above) chronicles the life of Sarah Breedlove Walker, who was born in 1870 in Louisiana to former slaves and became the richest African-American woman of her times and a major philanthropist. Her childhood was marked by dire hardships: by seven she was an orphan and working full-time as a laundress; by 20 she was a widow and a mother, beginning to go bald from years of poor nutrition and hard labor. In her 30s, she experimented with natural ingredients and chemicals and created a formula to restore the health of both hair and scalp. Beginning with door-to-door demonstrations in "colored" women's kitchens, she built her business into the Mme. C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company, by 1912 "one of the biggest companies in America." Lasky is better at conveying the young Sarah's suffering than she is at suggesting the texture of Walker's adult life, but she does a good job explaining the sociocultural factors affecting African-American women's attitudes toward hair. Bennett's (Gettin' Through Thursday; Cherish Me) soft-focus pencil and watercolor pictures suggest Walker's personality, although they tend to be short on action. Ironically, the illustrator's concluding note, in which she speaks as a black woman about her own attitudes toward beauty, may be for many readers the most affecting passages here. Ages 8-12. (Apr.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 2-4-Through a readable text and wonderful illustrations, Lasky brings to life one of the most successful women entrepreneurs in the United States. The author's research is extremely thorough, including interviews with her subject's great-great granddaughter. The narrative traces Breedlove's girlhood as the first free-born child of former slaves in Louisiana to her hard life as a laundress and single mother in St. Louis. The text explains that her interest in natural plants and oils to treat the hair of "colored" women stemmed from her own experience with damaged hair. Working with formulas in her own small laboratory, Breedlove began producing hair products. After her marriage to Charles Walker, she was able to open a factory in Pittsburgh. To sell her products, she enlisted black women of all ages to market them door to door. By 1912, the Mme. C. J. Walker Company was one of the largest companies in America. Lasky emphasizes the contributions of Walker and the company to the well being of black women and the community. Bennett's full-page watercolors give faces to the characters without overwhelming the text. Their pacing and placement help move the story along. This impressive picture book will delight young readers as it gives a sense of this remarkable woman and the times in which she lived.
Barbara Buckley, Rockville Centre Public Library, NY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Hardcover: 48 pages
• Publisher: Candlewick (January 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0763602531
• ISBN-13: 978-0763602536
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 0.4 x 12.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,172,311 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hi Readers! Thanks for coming by my author page. I've written all sorts of books - from fantasy about animals to books about science. One of my favorite animal fantasy series, Guardians of Ga'Hoole, is a major motion picture. I liked writing about Ga'Hoole so much that I decided to revisit that world in a new series, Wolves of the Beyond. Visit my website, www.kathrynlasky.com to see a slide show about the real wolves I researched for the series and for the latest update on the Guardians of Ga'Hoole movie. All my best, Kathryn

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book for one and all!, April 18, 2000

By 

Monica Rogers (Gainesville, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Vision of Beauty: The Story of Sarah Breedlove Walker (Hardcover)

Summary: This is a real life story of a young freed slave girl named Sarah Breedlove who feels inferior to white women because she is not as beautiful. She soon discovers a way to use herbs and oils to create hair products that will provide "colored" women with healthy hair. To advertise, she relies on ads that show colored women with healthy hair and a confident demeanor. As her company continues to grow, she employs other colored women who are willing to go into women's kitchens to show them the proper procedures for creating healthy hair. She also supports colored women in their fight for equality. She even stands up to Booker T. Washington when he implies that only colored men can fight for equality in the business world. Madame Walker (as she calls herself--Walker being her married name) becomes one of the wealthiest people in the country, yet she still fights for social justice.

Critical Review: In this picture book, Lasky creates an exciting story of a woman who overcomes the odds without forgetting her past and how she got to where she is. Lasky is able to do this by portraying Madame Walker as a real character with issues and struggles with which many readers may be able to relate. The illustrations by Bennett are beautiful and add to the story by capturing the essence of Madame Walker and her product line. Bennett's pictures are realistic and enchanting. In the author's letter, Lasky admits that she had to "fill in" some of the gaps left by her research. She does this exceedingly well in that the entire story seems possible. Though there were some gaps, Lasky based as much of the story as possible on research, some of which was from a first hand account by Walker's great-granddaughter. This book is about a minority group which is not stereo-typed by either the author or the illustrator. Overall, this book is very enjoyable and brings out some really great points. It will be surprising if the book does not win an award such as the Coretta Scott King, Caldecott, or Newbery.

Curriculum Connections: The possible curriculum connections in this book are numerous. One obvious connection is history. Lasky points out the racial and gender discrimination of the time. Connections can be made both to the Civil Rights Movement and the Women's Suffrage Movement. Another connection is in the field of science. Walker uses herbs and oils in her hair products. Students can examine the qualities of such herbs and check out how many are used in different types of products today. A third connection is climate. Lasky points out the different types of weather that Walker experiences as she moves from region to region around the US. Students can check out weather patterns that exist in different areas of the world. A final connection can be made in geography because Walker moves around the country so much.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful biography of Madame C.J. Walker!, July 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Vision of Beauty: The Story of Sarah Breedlove Walker (Hardcover)

This is a partially fictionalized account of Sarah Breedlove, a young impoverished girl born free just after slavery who grew up and became inventor of hair-care products for Black women. She owned and operated her own business and became financially successful. She renamed herself and her business Madame C.J. Walker. With her business acumen she soon became one of the richest women of her time. Though she lived lavishly, she was a great philanthropher of her people, giving of her time and money to charities for the betterment of the African-American race.

She employed a large number of Black women to promote and sell her products, thereby giving women an opportunity to have a profession that gave them pride and economic freedom.

The author grasps the blatant racism of the times without being depressing about it. She also captures the spirit of Madame Walker, an uneducated sharecropper who had a dream and achieved it.

The text is well illustrated with watercolor and pencil drawings in soft colors. This book would be a good addition to a school library collection for browsers and report writers alike.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rutgers University Project on Economics and Children, January 8, 2010

By 

Yana V. Rodgers "econkids.rutgers.edu" (New Brunswick, NJ) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Vision of Beauty: The Story of Sarah Breedlove Walker (Paperback)

Sarah Breedlove Walker, one of the wealthiest women in the United States and owner of the largest black-owned company during the early 1900s, started her life in extreme poverty. A child of former slaves who worked as sharecroppers in the South, Sarah spent long, grueling hours helping her family by carrying water, picking cotton, pushing a plow, and digging potatoes. Getting an education was hampered not only by the demands of farm life, but also by terrifying acts of violence committed by the Ku Klux Klan and witnessed firsthand by Sarah.

As a young adult, Sarah despaired at the toll that an inadequate diet and hard labor had taken on her hair, which was so brittle that she had started to go bald. Inspired by the air of confidence surrounding role models such as Margaret Washington, wife of Booker T., Sarah began working with natural ingredients to develop hair care products designed specifically for the needs of black women. Not only did she develop an innovative line of beauty products, she also created a highly successful company ' the Madam C. J. Walker Manufacturing Company ' and she became a leading philanthropist.

This carefully-researched book gets top marks for shining the spotlight on one of the most influential U.S. business leaders who made her riches despite the institutionalized discrimination she faced at the time against women and against blacks. The stunning illustrations work extremely well in adding to the emotional and historical context. Parents and teachers seeking to teach children about entrepreneurship will value this biographical work.