USA Today chose Two Friends: Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass as one of four recommended picture books for Black History Month.

The stylish ‘Two Friends’ imagines the meeting between two great progressive minds of the 19th century. When writer/orator Frederick Douglass joins abolitionist Susan B. Anthony at her home for tea, he learns of her fighting an educational system that doesn’t grant equal access to women, and in turn recounts the hardship of his enslaved childhood. The two activists share a goal: expanding the right to vote. Given such weighty material, ‘Two Friends’ is remarkably light on its feet, the composition of the pages lively and dynamic and the political figures rendered with high-beam charm. The book takes the time to note what the characters are wearing (“Susan wore a kind of pants called ‘bloomers.’ / She liked them better than the heavy dresses / women were supposed to wear.”), wisely indulging kids’ interests in both the superficial and the political.

Maria Russo reviews Two Friends: Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass in the February 14 issue of the New York Times Book Review.

A visit by Frederick Douglass to the home of Susan B. Anthony is at the center of this charming book about the intersections of women’s rights and African-American rights. Robbins presents the two struggles as different but parallel — each historical figure wonders why their kind can’t have “the right to live free. The right to vote.” On a snowy afternoon, they sit down to a cozy tea-and-cake in front of a fire and promise “to help each other” fight for justice. The husband-and-wife illustration team of Qualls and Alko blend lovely, lush painting and an elegant layer of text art, with regal streams of smudgy handwritten words and snippets of vintage print.