# The People's Painter

**Author:** Cynthia Levinson
**Grade range:** Grades 2–5
**First published:** 2021
**Page count:** 48
**ISBN-13:** `9781647003203`
**ISBN-10:** `1647003202`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/the-peoples-painter
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

A lyrically told, exquisitely illustrated biography of influential Jewish artist and activist Ben Shahn “The first thing I can remember,” Ben said, “I drew.” As an observant child growing up in Lithuania, Ben Shahn yearns to draw everything he sees—and, after seeing his father banished by the Czar for demanding workers’ rights, he develops a keen sense of justice, too. So when Ben and the rest of his family make their way to America, Ben brings both his sharp artistic eye and his desire to fight for what’s right. As he grows, he speaks for justice through his art—by disarming classmates who bully him because he’s Jewish, by defying his teachers’ insistence that he paint beautiful landscapes rather than true stories, by urging the US government to pass Depression-era laws to help people fin

## Where this book is assigned

### Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal

- **recommended** · 2nd grade — [source: Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal winners (American Library Association), via Wikipedia — 2022 Sibert Medal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Sibert_Informational_Book_Medal)
- **recommended** · 3rd grade — [source: Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal winners (American Library Association), via Wikipedia — 2022 Sibert Medal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Sibert_Informational_Book_Medal)
- **recommended** · 4th grade — [source: Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal winners (American Library Association), via Wikipedia — 2022 Sibert Medal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Sibert_Informational_Book_Medal)
- **recommended** · 5th grade — [source: Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal winners (American Library Association), via Wikipedia — 2022 Sibert Medal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Sibert_Informational_Book_Medal)

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