Bicycle Madness

By Jane Kurtz

A compelling story about the importance of standing up for what is right "I was almost home when I saw our new next-door neighbor, Miss Frances Willard, standing in front of her house. Oddly enough, she was holding on to a safety-bicycle!" Lillie is having a difficult year. She's still struggling with her mother's recent death, and now her father has moved the family to the other side of town. But when Frances Willard-Lillie's new neighbor-decides to learn how to ride a bicycle, Lillie finds promising change all around her. Even though her father disapproves of their progressive neighbor, Lillie and Miss Frances soon become friends. Miss Frances is involved in more than taming a wild bike, however; she is part of Susan B. Anthony's circle, fighting for the right for women to vote, as well as child-labor laws and better conditions for workers. Together, Lillie and Miss Frances take on their beasts-a bike and a daunting spelling bee-and find the will to dust themselves off, get back up, and ride for all they're worth. Set in the late 1800s, this engaging novel skillfully blends fine storytelling with women's history.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 080506981X
• ISBN13: 9780805069815
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 0.8" x 5.7"
• Age Range: 7 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 2 to 7

Customer Reviews

BICYCLE MADNESS is funny, poignant and thought-provoking.

Lillie's world is looking rather grim these days. Her father is struggling to cope with the death of Lillie's mother. He gives her very little of his time and goes around looking like a thundercloud. Lillie misses her mother so much that it hurts. She also has to deal with a daunting spelling bee and a teacher whom she doesn't care for all that much. In fact, as she puts it, "Sometimes Miss Twombley had such a tight voice, it made me wonder if her shoes were squeezing her feet." Pile on to this the fact that Lillie and her best friend Minerva have a fight, and you have a classic recipe for unhappiness.But then someone very peculiar moves into the neighborhood, a Miss Frances Willard. Before she knows how or why, Lillie becomes friends with this fascinating and incorrigible woman. Miss Frances is determined to learn how to ride a bicycle, a symbol of freedom for women. Meanwhile, Lillie wants to do well in the spelling bee. So the two stubborn friends support one another in their struggles and in other ways as well.BICYCLE MADNESS is a funny, poignant and thought-provoking story. Beautifully written in Lillie's own 'voice,' we celebrate her victories and suffer her losses along with her. Jane Kurtz has found a wonderful way of conveying to readers how difficult it was to be a forward-thinking woman in the late 1800s. In her lifetime, Miss Frances was considered to be a revolutionary for her behavior and ideas.Charming black-and-white illustrations that capture Lillie and her world can be found throughout the book. Readers will find a very interesting author's note in the back that describes Kurtz's journey in writing the book, in addition to historical information about Frances Willard and her work. --- (...)

A SLICE OF HISTORY DELIVERED WITH A GREAT CAST OF CHARACTERS

A cast of likeable and intriguing characters combine with a lively historical context--greater Chicago, 1898, Women's Suffrage Movement--and genuine historical figures to create a novel for the transitional reader crowd that is SURE to please. Main character Lillie is a fiesty heroine and her struggles to overcome her mother's death and friendship woes take shape in counterpoint to her friendship with Feminist Frances Willard.Teachers take note! An excellent read-aloud or novel for literature study.