Marilyn Monroe

The Little People Big Dreams series is great if you want a biographical picture book to introduce an important person to a younger child or as a quick primer story for older kids before they do more research. If you are looking for a biography this will probably disappoint. I usually love the Little People Big Dreams series in that they are biographical picture books that make learning about a new person accessible to younger children. My 5 year old has thoroughly enjoyed this series as we have been slowly going through them.Just like all the other books in this series, this story starts out with Marilyn Monroe, Norma Jeane, as a little girl and the influences that would help make her who she was. But instead this really just touched on her liking movies. It then leads into some things that were worded in a way that I don't like the message it sends.At one point the book says, "...Normal Jeane thought about the thousands of girls just like her who were dreaming about becoming a movie star. She decided not to worry--she new she was dreaming the hardest." I'm not sure I like the message this sends that if you just want something enough that you'll get it. According to some accounts she was ambitious and put a lot of hard work into getting to where she was. It wasn't just about wanting it enough. I wish they at least mentioned how hard she worked to get to where she was and not just wishes will come true if you just want it enough.In another section the book has this, "When America found out she had posed with very little clothes on for a calendar, the studio she worked for asked her to deny it. But Marilyn knew she had done nothing wrong and told the truth, gaining everyone's respect and understanding" I am all about having young girls be positive about their bodies but did she really gain "everyone's respect and understanding by posing in a calendar that objectifies women?Overall I like this series but I would have much rather they left Marilyn Monroe out of the series. By virtue of her being featured in this series there is an automatic draw for my kids to want to read the books. I was hoping that there would be more to this book that would provide a positive take home message but it just wasn't there. There are other actresses of the time that didn't contribute to the "dumb blonde" or the objectification of women that would have been better role models for young women today. Perhaps Marilyn Monroe was a victim of her time and was only successful because she played the Hollywood game in order to become famous. However, I would rather my daughter have strong "be who you are" role models instead of ones that conform and adjust their virtues to attain success.Review For:Marilyn Monroe (Volume 67) (Little People, BIG DREAMS)

My son has at least 20 of these Little People, Big Dreams books. And we love them all. They are very interesting and he learns about all different kinds of people (artists, writers, architects, sports stars, activists, politicians, musicians, fashion designers, etc.) Some are super famous (Gandhi). Some are not super famous (Zaha Hadid--well, at least I never heard of her before reading the book.) They are diverse in abled-ness, ethnicity, race, gender, sexuality, etc. All the books are very informative nd I feel really teach my son a lot about so many different people currently and in the past.They all follow the same structure--telling the story of a renowned person from the point of view of the person as a child. In this story, the authors talk about the life of Marilyn Monroe. How as a little girl she ended up orphaned and in several foster families and really all she wanted was to be loved. A lot of focus on what a kid person she was. Of course, it talks about how she got into acting and her success in that. It was interesting because it really didn’t talk about the things Monroe was most known for—high profile relationships, drug and alcohol issues and her overdose. It really focuses on her as a person and her desire to be loved, stemming from her abandonment as a child. On one hand, it’s nice to read a positive book about her because generally I think she is focused on as a tragic figure (or sex symbol.) On the other hand, it seems weird to leave that out. Those are important details and we have other books that at least touch on drug overdoses (The Jean Michel Basquiat book, for example.)Overall, though, it’s great. My son asked all sorts of questions and Marilyn Monroes movies and work after reading this, The illustrations are colorful and engaging. My son is always excited to see we've gotten another Little People, Big Dreams book. I definitely recommend this book (and all the Little People, Big Dreams books.)

My daughter collects the Little People, Big Dreams series, and our favorites are the ones about actresses like the ones on Audrey Hepburn and Mindy Kaling. There's something about the style of this series that lends itself best to icons in film and music. Maybe it's because there's not a lot of background necessary to appreciate their stories because we all know about the movies, music scene, and Hollywood from general popular culture. The political figures and scientists are harder to convey in a short format biography because their careers and what they actually did require more explanation than the format of this series really allows. In any case, this isn't our favorite celebrity book in the series (see Audrey and Mindy above), but we still enjoyed reading it. There are some funny parts from a kid's eyes like the page that says, "When America found out that she had posed with very little clothes on for a calendar, the studio she worked for asked her to deny it. But Marilyn knew she had done nothing wrong and told the truth, gaining everyone's respect and understanding." Hmmm...try talking about that with a kid. It's an interesting intersection of objectification and body positivity, and certainly a conversation worth having with any young woman reading this book alongside you, but it's a rabbit hole down history to build up enough background knowledge for that page to make sense. In other words, this book as with some others in the series has pages that only make sense to adults and really don't translate easily for kids. More conversation sparked by the next page which read: "Marilyn became a famous personality, who thought it was better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring." There's no context for that sentence and the illustration doesn't show what it means, so my young reader asked, "How was she ridiculous?" Especially because on the next page, she's fighting for equal pay for actresses, so the book kinda implies that's ridiculous, which I'm sure was unintended. So we had some quibbles with a few pages, but the overall book was fun and interesting to read. The last page in the book is the famous dress billowing over the subway grate, so we went to the Internet to see the real image. My kid was like, I don't get it, but I'm glad she was able to follow her dreams. LOL, me too.

Marilyn Monroe is such an American icon, and this illustrated storybook does a fabulous job of introducing her to a younger generation! It highlights the early years of her life (when she was still known as Norma Jeane), and young readers will see her chronologically progress through orphanages, foster homes, a teen wedding, some assembly-line factory work, a few modeling gigs, and even some star-building acting classes.As it turns out, life wasn’t always easy for this little girl from Los Angeles, yet even with a failed marriage and some scandalously risqué calendar photos that were leaked, nothing held her back from ultimately pursuing her Tinseltown dreams!Throughout her career, she promoted equality throughout the cinema industry, and she often gave back to the armed services by performing for military members around the world. The end of the book features a timeline of her life with personal, black-and-white photographs, so children are also given a glimpse of who she actually was as a person — in addition to the informative text and illustrations.I’ve enjoyed many books in the (Little People, BIG DREAMS) series so far, and I look forward to reading several more of the inspirational character stories that have been featured! The books are always concise, engaging, and visually appealing, and I learn something new with every read. The pages depict a multicultural mix of races, genders, and age groups, so I would definitely recommend this story to others.

I’m reading this children’s biography which is a picture book intended for kids aged 4–8 years old through the eyes of a reading teacher, as a former homeschooling mother who relied heavily on book reading, as a lover of biographies for teaching kids life lessons and inspiration, and as an adult who formerly was so curious about Marilyn Monroe that I read about six books on her life and death.This book is pretty well sanitized because it does not include really the fact that she was primarily famous for being a sexually appealing female and secondarily for her acting ability. This book scrubs away all of her problems with drinking and drug addiction and it never mentions her alleged affair with President Kennedy or anything about her death/conspiracy theories of possible murder vs. suicide.The book focuses on her groundbreaking formation of a film production company which was a change from the studio system and it also leads the reader to think she was a great actress. I don’t like the page where they talk about her being photographed with very little clothes on, I think that opens up a discussion that maybe some parents aren’t ready to have with a four or five year old, then again maybe this is a good segue to discuss the topic that these kids should not be allowing anyone to take their photographs scantily clad…