Review: Pedal Pusher

Pedal Pusher: How One Woman's Bicycle Adventure Helped Change the World

by Mary Boone, illustrated by Lisa Anchin

Henry Holt & Co. (imprint of Macmillan Children's Publishing Group), 2025

Category: Picture Books

Reviewer: Jeff Gottesfeld

 

Buy at Bookshop.org

In the late 1800's, the idea of a woman riding a bicycle around the world was preposterous. Yet that is just what petite Annie Cohen Kopchovsky did. A Latvian-Jewish immigrant to America with three little children, Annie took a bet offered by two Boston business people. Off she went, and change her unwieldy name for the ride to the name of one of her sponsoring companies, becoming known as Annie Londonderry. This book tracks her journey, illustrated with fun period art that takes Annie from New York to Egypt to Japan to Africa -- at least that's what she claimed! -- and home again, breaking all kinds of norms and setting the stage for women in sports and business that we are living today.

It's an inspiring and simple story, with an unmistakable feminist message. There's a lot left out, as with any picture book biography. Who took care of her kids while she was circumnavigating the globe over 15 pedaling months? Still, readers will surely be inspired by this tale of athleticism, courage, and norm-busting.

Jewish content and representation are fairly minimal. The author includes in the text, "She was a Latvian Jewish immigrant, and this was a time when prejudice against Jewish people was widespread." Also, there is a depiction of the heroine and family lighting Shabbat candles at the table. Other than that, there is no Jewish content, though a little online research shows that the heroine's husband was Orthodox. There were opportunities, obviously, if the writer and illustrator wanted to address what it was like to live Jewishly while riding around the world in the late 1800's, but that was not the direction chosen. While inspirational in other ways, this is not a title to increase a reader's understanding of the Jewish experience.

 

ARE YOU INTERESTED IN REVIEWING BOOKS FOR THE SYDNEY TAYLOR SHMOOZE? CLICK HERE

 

Reviewer Jeff Gottesfeld writes for stage, page, and screen. His recent focus is picture book texts for children. He wrote THE CHRISTMAS MITZVAH (Creston, 2021), illustrated by Michelle Agatha, a 2021 Sydney Taylor Honor Book, and the 2017 Sydney Taylor Notable THE TREE IN THE COURTYARD (Knopf, 2016), illustrated by Peter McCarty. His next title is FIGHT FOR THE RIGHT TO READ (Creston, September 9, 2025), with Michelle Green and illustrated by Kim Holt, about the 1939 sit-down, read-in strike by young Black men to integrate the new Alexandria, Virginia public library.