Introducing Sandwina: The Strongest Woman in the World
by Vicki Conrad; illus. by Jeremy Holmes
Primary    Calkins/Astra    48 pp.
12/24    9781662680151    $18.99
e-book ed.  9781662680168    $11.99

Born into a German circus family in 1884, Katie Brumbach dazzled audiences with incredible feats of strength. Conrad opens her tale with Brumbach’s legendary win over strongman Eugen Sandow, after which she renamed herself Sandwina. (The author says in her closing note that there is no written record of the victory but: “This legend has been told over and over again.”) Readers learn of Sandwina’s romance with a skinny acrobat named Max who became her husband—and stage prop—and of their immigration to the United States and her subsequent career. Conrad adopts the tone of a carnival barker to reel off her subject’s many feats of strength: “Sandwina balanced a 1,000-pound cannon on her chest. When eight men placed a half-ton stone onto Sandwina’s back, she threw it off!” Holmes matches Conrad’s delivery with a poster-inspired design that leans into Sandwina’s charismatic stage presence, topping her burly form with a pile of blue, curlicued tresses, and is complemented by flourishes of display type (which sometimes threaten to overwhelm the narrative). Occasional ticket-shaped callout boxes convey additional information, such as the fact that Sandwina and other circus women joined the suffrage movement. Beneath Conrad’s breathless narration runs a strong current of body positivity: “Sandwina proved strength was beauty, and beauty was strength. Katie’s bold costumes showed off every muscle.” Photographs accompanying the back matter back this claim up. A rousing introduction to a larger-than-life figure.

From the ">January/February 2025 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.