Book Review: Ida B. the Queen

Here’s a seemingly random photo I took in downtown Eugene, Oregon, since technology refuses to admit I took a book photo today. But it’s kind of relevant, since the book covers Wells’s legacy and relevance to recent events.

Duster, Michelle. Ida B. the Queen: The Extraordinary Life and Legacy of Ida B. Wells. Atria/One Signal Publishers: NY, 2021.

This is an unconventional biography. It’s not organized the way I expected, but it’s okay to have an element of surprise.

The author is the great-granddaughter of Ida B. Wells. The book begins with an intro and a lovely chapter about what it was like growing up with such an important great-grandmother.

Next, until about halfway through the book, it’s like a regular biography (what I expected the entire book to be).

Then there’s a timeline… followed by a section on Ida B. Well’s legacy, which at first I thought was just a general section on Black history. However, it’s a mixture of more recent history of black activists… and accounts of some of Ida B. Wells’s activism.

If you look at the front cover and flip through the book — seeing many illustrations, including original art in bright colors — you might think it’s a children’s book. But the typeface is small. It does have a lot of kerning. Maybe it’s directed at teens, but even YA typically has a larger typeface.

Overall I appreciate this book. It’s an easy-to-read-during-a-pandemic-and-grief sort of book that answers questions I had about Wells. I also have two more scholarly books about her and a collection of her writings, so I intend to delve deeper when I’m in a less anxious state.