You might have heard the news this past week of the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
You’ve probably heard of Ginsburg throughout the years (maybe when On the Basis of Sex came out, or the documentary RBG), but whether you have the Notorious RBG tattooed somewhere or you’ve really only heard of her name in passing, here are some books and movies for you to learn more about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, her life, and her perseverance in her fight for women’s rights and equality in the United States.
Let’s start with No Truth Without Ruth by Kathleen Krull, illustrated by Nancy Zhang, a beautifully illustrated children’s biography of Ruth’s life, from her early years to becoming Supreme Court Justice. This is a wonderful introduction to the legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg for all ages, quite well paced, and I must say, the illustrations are absolutely gorgeous! After the biography, there is a handy timeline of her life, as well as an outline of the American court system, and a Top 10 RBG Career Highlights page. I know this is filed under our junior section, but I’d recommend it as an nice introduction to RBG to whet your appetite regardless of your age. Another junior title about RBG is I Dissent, by Debbie Levy, where Ginsburg “proves that disagreeing does not make you disagreeable!” (from Bibliocommons).
Following that, I’m going to list a few different links to get a feel for what RBG meant – continues to mean – to people, as an icon, as well as to see what she stood for and voiced her dissent in order to achieve: To Make Light From Pain (LitHub), even as a 13-year old, On Prejudice, Its Antidote, and the Five Documents that Shaped Humanity (Brain Pickings), the Notorious RBG tumblr (yes, tumblr – here’s the book that came of the tumblr: Notorious RBG), this opinion piece from the New York Times (access for free using VPL’s subscription) and this interview from 2015 from The Rolling Stone: How Ruth Bader Ginsburg Became the Notorious RBG, of which one of the interview questions was “One thing I think a lot of people have a hard time understanding about RBG is how she could be friends with Justice Scalia – who’s more or less her ideological opposite on the Court. They go to the opera together, and their families have spent holidays together. What’s up with that?” Being able to be friends with someone with whom you disagree on virtually every topic of importance, and being able to meet people halfway so as to open up the possibility of discussion… that’s something to learn from, for sure.
Beyond that, we have in our catalogue:
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life by Jane Sherron De Hart (above)
- Conversations with RBG by Jeffrey Rosen
- My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg herself (she had Nabokov as her literature professor, just throwing that out there)
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg: I Know This to Be True: On Equality, Determination and Service by Geoff Blackwell
And to end on a lighter note, here’s The RBG Workout so you can exercise the way RBG herself did!