Empowered!
Katie, Big and Strong: The True Story of the Mighty Woman Who Could Lift Anything
by Jennifer Cooper (illustrated by Jen White)
Naperville: Sourcebooks Kids, 2024
$28.00 / 9781728267814
Reviewed by Ginny Ratsoy
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BC resident Jennifer Cooper and Californian Jen White have taken raw material from history and made, if not a full-blown tall tale, at least a very big story of it. Katie Sandwina (née Katharina Brumbach, 1884) was an Austrian strongwoman who married acrobat Max Heymann. The couple eventually took their act to the US, joining Barnum & Bailey Circus. Cooper and White’s Katie is a super-heroine all the way through the journey she is on—from her astounding physical prowess to her “lifting up” of women in the fight for the right to vote in the early years of the twentieth century in her adopted country.
Katie, Big and Strong consists of two parts. The text proper makes full use of the motivational theme of the strength of the large-in-all senses-of-the-word Katie. The second part of the book, likely aimed at older relatives or caregivers of those young readers, provides more historical context.
The text and the illustrations are intricately intertwined in the story proper, as Katie progresses from performing in her family’s act at the age of two to besting men her age as a teenager and winning Max’s heart because of her impressive size and ability.
Cooper utilizes questions, rhyme, and other devices to engage young readers/listeners as she relates Katie’s success with great exuberance. Even the font (colourful, vivid, and varied) keeps young audiences in mind. This is a well-designed book.
White’s bold art—created with a tablet, digital pencil, and coloured pencil and gouache brushes—picks up and plays on all of the nuances of the narrative. This reader found the illustration of the marriage proposal, with “sweet Max” on hands and knees in suitably formal garb, immediately followed by Katie’s single handed feat of lifting Max (in the same garb) “above the crowds to see the world,” a fitting encapsulation of the book’s central message that women of the time—or any time—can accomplish whatever they set out to, despite formidable societal dictates to the contrary.
Katie’s fame only grows in New York City, where her strength elevates her to the status of “a goddess on high.” Here, her elevating powers also move from the literal to the metaphoric, when she uses her fame to lead the “circus suffragettes” to demand the right to vote.
The story for young readers (four and up) ends with our super-heroine doing and having it all—marriage and motherhood, career renown, and social justice accomplishments. The final image, of Katie looking in a mirror, brings home the message of the importance of a positive self-image.
In the second part of the book, “About Katie,” Cooper is careful to qualify her account, acknowledging that elements of legend have inevitably crept into accounts of Katie’s feats, and noting the absence of reliable sources around some aspects of Katie Sandwina’s career. A photograph, taken “around 1912” is enlisted to support her contentions. This section also postdates the story of part one, taking it past the point of Katie’s retirement from public life and discussing ways in which her accomplishments have been commemorated.
Cooper and White seem to have found an appropriate publisher for their big story. Sourcebook Kids’ parent company, Sourcebooks, was, according to Publishers Weekly, one of the fastest-growing independent publishers in the US as recently as 2022. With the Stars and Stripes displayed prominently throughout the book, Katie, Big and Strong should have particular appeal to American youngsters. However, a wider audience is likely to be roused by Cooper and White’s imposing Katie Sandwina and the loud-and-clear message that self-confident females can do it all.
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Ginny Ratsoy is Professor Emerita at Thompson Rivers University. Her scholarly publications have focused on Canadian fiction, theatre, small cities, third-age learning, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Recently, Ratsoy was honoured and humbled to receive the 2024 Margaret Cleaveley Award for Canadian Literature Instruction from the Kamloops Adult Learners Society, where she has been a volunteer instructor since 2007 and, since her retirement in 2020, has also been involved as a board member and course coordinator. [Editor’s note: Ginny Ratsoy has reviewed books by Sara Cassidy, Kallie George, Bill Richardson, Alison Hughes, Caroline Woodward, David Suzuki, Iona Whishaw, Danny Ramadan, Polly Horvath, Yolanda Ridge, Winona Kent, Amanda Lewis, Gregor Craigie, Iona Whishaw, Elizabeth Bass, Karen L. Abrahamson, & J.E. Barnard (eds.), and Gregor Craigie & Kathleen Fu for BCR.]
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The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors, 2023-25: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction and peotry)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an online book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
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