Ablaze
The Story of America's First Female Smokejumper
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A lyrical and empowering biography on Deanne Shulman, America's first female smokejumper.
Deanne loved being outdoors.
With her family, she spent summers sailing the Salton Sea and backpacking the Sierra Nevada Mountains. As she grew older, her love of nature only grew. So when the heat rose each fire season and the blazes burned near and far, she noticed. Deanne knew she had to do her part in fighting the fires. She spent years on woodland crews, clearing brush and branches that could make the fire spread, and on hotshot crews where she fought faster fires and took bigger risks, spending weeks in one-hundred-degree heat working twenty-four-hour shifts. But what Deanne really wanted was to be a smokejumper, to jump from planes and parachute into dangerous wildfires that no truck could ever reach. To be the first line of defense. The only problem? There had never been a female smokejumper before.
With lyrical text from Jessica Lawson and striking illustrations from Sarah Gonzales, Ablaze tells the story of Deanne Shulman’s groundbreaking work with the United States Forest Service as she fought against unfair rules and blazed the way for women in firefighting.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Growing up in a family attuned to nature, Deanna Shulman later found her calling in the grueling and often dangerous work of U.S. Forest Service wildland crews, reducing wildfire risks and maintaining forest health: "Hard physical work. Camaraderie with crewmates. Being outdoors. All things that fueled her heart's fire." But when Shulman aspired to become a smokejumper and trained diligently for the role, she was dismissed for "looking too small." Undaunted, she filed a complaint under the Equal Employment Opportunity Act, never stopped training, and triumphed. Lawson, making her picture book debut, leans into fire metaphors to describe the protagonist's state of mind across concise, often poetic text that captures Shulman's passion and steely determination. Warm-toned artwork by Gonzales (You'll Always Be My Chickadee) makes the most of the book's horizontal format, evoking the radiant hues and strong graphic lines of WPA murals while depicting Shulman in heroic action poses against sweeping landscapes. In this resonant story, conserving nature, protecting communities, and demanding equal opportunity unite. Background characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 4–7. Author's agent: Tina Dubois, CAA. Illustrator's agent: Alexandra Levick, Writers House.
