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Young Adult Library Services Assoc. Praises new YA Book

The Young Adult Library Association (YALSA) blog highlights March of the Suffragettes by Zachary Michael Jack as among theyalsa-logo most noteworthy young adult narrative nonfictions with social justice themes in recent years. Reviewer Alicia Abdul writes, “Social change starts with a step and for Rosalie Gardiner Jones who gathered a group of people to walk with her to Albany from New York City to win rights for women in the voting booth. There were many voices that contributed. Some we know well and others like Jones need accessible texts like this one that highlight the outspoken bravery it took to fight for certain rights.” Check out the full listing of recommended YA social change nonfiction from the last five years at http://www.yalsa.ala.org/thehub/2016/12/06/narrative-nonfiction-social-justice/

School Library Journal Praises New YA Book

sljournal-logoSchool Library Journal favorably reviews March of the Suffragettes by Zachary Michael Jack in their December Print Edition. Following is the text of the review:

In 1912, a well-educated woman from an established New York family led a 175-mile march from New York City to the state capitol in Albany with the goal of handing the governor a petition urging him to support voting rights for women. A trek that began with much hoopla and a huge turnout of supporters eventually came down to just Rosalie Gardiner Jones and her associates Ida Craft, Lavinia Dock, and Jessie Hardy Stubbs. They refused to be dissuaded by family members, unruly bystanders, the lack of food, and the cold weather. Their dedication to the cause was as strong as their friendship for one another, and this combination catapulted them to success. With an informal writing style, this is an engaging title that will appeal to many readers. The use of newspapers accounts of the march helps bring this event into the 21st century.” VERDICT  A fine chronicle of the early 20th-century United States and the tenacity of Rosalie Gardiner Jones.–Patricia Ann Owens, formerly at Illinois Eastern Community Colleges, Mt. Carmel.

ZMJ’s Liberty Hyde Bailey book out in new edition for Fall 2016

61hp4jjpc6l-_sx346_bo1204203200_Cornell University Press recently reissued Zachary Michael Jack’s popular title Liberty Hyde Bailey: Essential Environmental and Agrarian Writings in paperback for 2016. Sample some of the many positive reviews below:

Editorial Reviews

Review

“It’s strange that Bailey (1858–1954) is not more of a household name. Teacher, botanist, horticulturist, rural sociologist, administrator, encyclopedist, poet, photographer, visionary, Bailey did a lot and wrote even more. Jack’s judicious selections and annotations provide readers with a neat digest of Bailey’s ideas on education, democracy, agriculture, nature, and community. His theme is essentially agrarian, chiefly a concern for the ills that befall people who are at a distance from the things of the earth. In a style that is at once impressionistic, scientific, and surpassingly poetic, he urges us to pay attention, or, in contemporary parlance, be mindful. His prescience is startling; for example, he wrote in 1911, ‘when the new lands have all been opened to cultivation, and when thousands of millions of human beings occupy the earth, the demand for food will constitute a problem which we scarcely apprehend today. We shall then be obliged to develop self-sustaining methods of maintaining the producing power of land.’ With a revelation on nearly every page, this collection is highly recommended for all libraries looking to bolster their environmental history collections.”―Library Journal

“I thank Zachary Michael Jack for the care and skill he exhibited in retrieving Bailey’s voice, and I look forward to revelations that will surely come among those who take the time to listen to it.” –Agricultural History

“What a great and lucky thing to have these soaring words back in print―and at exactly the right moment. It’s clear, looking at our dwindling supplies of oil, that we’re going to need more Americans doing the noble work of farming, literally following in Bailey’s footsteps.”―Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy

“At a time when the need for environmentalism was just beginning to be recognized, Liberty Hyde Bailey was already writing passionately about the importance of a better attitude toward the land, and how the need was increasing with the expansion of urbanism. His vision spoke prophetically of the increasing need to act responsibly to the environment―a clear antecedent to Aldo Leopold’s call for an ethical relationship to the land.”―A. Carl Leopold

“This is a delightful book. The collection of essays Zachary Michael Jack has selected provide the reader with a remarkably comprehensive picture of the life and work of Liberty Hyde Bailey. The timing of this book could not be better: As we approach the end of the industrial era the prescient vision Bailey offered to us in such lyric form may now help us redefine the meaning of progress and well-being.”―Fred Kirschenmann, Director, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Iowa State University, and President, Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, Pocontico Hills, NY

 

National Book Tour Heads to OK, NM, CA

The national book tour for March of the Suffragettes marches into its final three weeks as Zachary Michael Jack heads to Oklahoma and New Mexico, and California. Join Zachary for his first after-Thanksgiving book-signing at Best of Books in greater Oklahoma City and again in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on December 1 at Coas Books. Friday, December 9th Zachary will be visiting the seventh and eight grades classes at the Kirby Preparatory School in Santa Cruz, California. Check back here for more updates on Zachary’s holiday tour. img_1352
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ZMJ Reads at San Francisco Public Library; West Coast Tour

sfpl_logoA busy week of events on the West Coast for Zachary Michael Jack and March of the Suffragettes: Rosalie Gardiner Jones and the March for Voting Rights, beginning with a book-signing at Old Capitol Books in Monterey and a mid-week lecture and salon at the San Francisco Public Library.  Rosalie marches on!

YA nonfiction #1 new Amazon bestseller in its class; earns national reviews

March of the Suffragettes: Rosalie Gardiner Jones and the March for Voting Rights, New YA nonfiction by Zachary Michael Jack, reached #1 on Amazon’s list of new bestsellers in young adult nonfiction (Politics and Government) on October 1. Rosalie Gardiner Jones marches on!

Writing for the Santa Fe New Mexican, reviewer Jennifer Levin writes of March of the Suffragettes, “Though the book is a perfect vehicle to get teen-agers interested in reading about history, the complexity and density of information Jack provides, as well as his facility with humor and dramatic tension, will also hook more mature readers.”

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ZMJ Joins USA Today bestseller Ann Garvin on Nonfiction Panel

celebratewriting-oct15-web-nlZachary Michael Jack joins USA Today bestselling author Ann Garvin and Diane Fannon-Langton as a nonfiction panelist at the annual MPL Celebrate Writing Conference. The topic for the panel discussion is “Creative Nonfiction: The Complication and Compensation of Writing Nonfiction So It Reads Like Fiction.”

New YA Book Hits Shelves Today; ZMJ visits area high schools

Publication day and a shelf’s worth of March of the Suffragettes: Rosalie Gardiner Jones and the March for Voting Rights ready for readers at the local indie bookstore. To mark the launch of the book, Zachary joined high school history and English classes at Lyons Township High School in LaGrange, Illinois, this past week at the invitation of LT teachers and librarians.

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Week of pre-launch events for new YA book begins week of 9/19

andersons-bookshop-logoZachary Michael Jack’s latest book, March of the Suffragettes: Rosalie Gardiner Jones and the March to Voting Rights, will be pre-launched this week in a series of public events, beginning with a writers-in-the-schools visit on Friday, September 23, and an in-store book-signing at Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville, Illinois on Saturday, September 24 at 2 p.m. Books will be available for purchase and signing in advance of the book’s official September 27th release date. Details for the Anderson’s event may be found here.

March of the Suffragettes has been included in the Best YA Books of 2016 catalogue by the American Bookseller’s Association.