Gr. 4-5. Blackwell, the first woman to graduate from a medical school in the U.S., is a popular subject for children's biographies. This concise account of her heroic life and works falls nicely between Carol Greene's Elizabeth Blackwell (1991) and Jordan Brown's Elizabeth Blackwell (1989) in its level of detail. Adding occasional speculative fillips ("Elizabeth blushed a deep red," "Elizabeth felt lonely," etc), Peck presents his information in a fluent, coherent way, providing additional detail in text boxes. He cogently articulates the obstacles and prejudices Blackwell overcame and sets her within the context of women's history, without neglecting her ambivalence toward the women's rights movement or the fact that she gained admittance to medical school only because a male doctor recommended her.
