You’re never too old to have heroes. Just ask Dean Robbins.
“I’ve had this pantheon of heroes ever since I was a little kid, and I never really grew out of that,” says the former Isthmus editor, who has written biographical picture books about several of his heroes. His latest, You Are a Star, Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Scholastic Press) with illustrations by Sarah Green, hit bookstores Feb. 1. “When I was little, I wanted to be like Batman and Superman. Then I got older and gravitated to real-life heroes like Susan B. Anthony, Frederick Douglass and Jonas Salk — people who could provide inspiration for how to live a worthwhile life.”
Robbins has written books about those heroes, too, and they are as entertaining and enlightening for adult readers as they are for children. Since 2016 he has published eight picture books with colorful titles and vibrant illustrations, including The Astronaut Who Painted the Moon: The True Story of Alan Bean and ¡Mambo Mucho Mambo!: The Dance That Crossed Color Lines.
You Are a Star, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the first title in the new You Are a Star series that Robbins created with Scholastic. The second book, starring scientist and chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall, will be published in spring 2023. Adhering to a nontraditional picture book structure that includes a mix of first-person narrative, humorous comic panels, and essential facts, Robbins presents multiple facets of the late U.S. Supreme Court justice’s life and personalizes her lifelong mission of striving for equality and justice.
Although Ginsburg died in September 2020, Robbins’ first-person prose brings her to life and presents a perspective not often found in other books for kids.
“Jane Goodall and Ruth Bader Ginsburg have been extensively covered in children’s literature,” he says. “The books out there tend to be earnest and pretty straightforward, which is a fine approach. But I saw an opportunity to be less reverent and more playful, given that both women are extremely idiosyncratic, with a strong sense of humor and lots of funny, eccentric experiences.”
For example, in one of the cartoon panels in You Are a Star, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Ginsburg tells readers that she hoped to be a singer when she was young “but no one else wanted me to be one!” She studied in a bathtub because it was the quietest place she could find, and her daughter, Jane, kept track of every time Ginsburg giggled in “Mommy’s Laugh Journal.”
Robbins began his career at Isthmus in 1986 as arts editor and served as editor-in-chief from 2009 to 2014. Today, he draws on his experience as a journalist each time he begins writing a new book.
“Just like a journalist, you get excited about an idea, you throw yourself into the research, you figure out the most interesting parts of the story, and then you try to come up with something original that’ll appeal to readers,” Robbins says, adding that book publishers increasingly are responding to reader demand for a wider range of voices and subjects.
“It’s led to books that are expanding children’s sense of possibility for themselves and for others,” he says. “I think these newer books give readers greater insight into history and the diverse people who contributed to making the world what it is today. It’s not just about Abraham Lincoln and the Founding Fathers anymore. I’ve been able to write about lesser-known heroes like pioneering computer scientist Margaret Hamilton and deaf daredevil Kitty O’Neil in the hopes that they’ll inspire the next generation as much as they’ve inspired me.”
