Fearless Mary by Tami Charles (illustrated by Claire Almon) is a nonfiction early reader about Mary Fields the first African American Woman to drive a stage coach. It is an incredible story about a larger than life figure that helped pave the way for others of color and women in general.
The story tells how Mary Fields, a former slave, hitched horses faster than any man to be awarded the job of stage coach driver. It also gives us a glimpse of what it was like to be a stage coach driver. The daily challenges Mary would have faced and the pride she took in doing her job.
The whole book was thoughtful done. While it is nonfiction mixed with fiction, the story is presented in such a way that all young readers will enjoy. The illustrators are well done and suit the story nicely. I think most young readers will connect with Mary in some way. We need more role models like her today.
I recommend this book to young readers (6 to 10) who are interested in the history of the American West and African American history. The book is appropriate for readers as young as 6; yet, because of the subject matter some older readers may also enjoy. I think it will especially appeal to girls because the story has such a positive message about women and women of color and Mary is such a strong female character that young girls will identify with.
I received a free copy at BEA from the author in exchange for my honest review. ( )

Another amazing woman I had never heard of before! ( )

The author explains in an afterword that not much is really known about Mary Fields besides a bare outline, some photos, and a lot of rumors, so the author had to use her imagination to fill in the gaps. What we do know is that a six-foot tall woman named Mary Fields who was a slave prior to the Civil War was hired in 1895 as a mail carrier in Cascade, Montana. It was an important and dangerous occupation, and Mary was faster than any other applicant [all of whom were male cowboys] at hitching a team of six horses, a test given for the job.

Mail carriers not only had to fight the terrain, weather, and wild animals, but they had to defend themselves and their cargo against the dangerous outlaws attracted to the supplies, food, and money carried by the stagecoaches. The author writes:

“To do the job, you need to be smart, tough, unshakable. As a former slave who traveled to the West alone to seek opportunity, Mary Fields is all of those things.”

The author points out that Fields was the first African American woman, and only the second woman, to work in the United States Postal Service. According to the Smithsonian, she never missed a day of work, even showing up during heavy snow by wearing snowshoes and carrying the mail packs on her back.

Mary rode the trails - a fifteen-mile route - for eight years, from 1895 to 1903. She was around seventy years old when she finally “retired” in town and ran a laundry out of her home.

The author observes that nowadays, while delivery men and women still endure long days on the road and harsh weather at times, they face nothing like the dangers Mary encountere in the Wild West. She concludes:

“Today, Mary’s bravery is remembered in Cascade and throughout the country.”

Well, not exactly true, but it should be.

Illustrations by Claire Almon reflect her background in cartoon animation.

Discussion: The author could have added an important part of Mary’s story, at least in part, as shared by the National Postal Museum:

“Mary was also popular for her community commitment. When she wasn’t drinking, fighting, delivering the mail, or performing manual labor, Mary gave food to the poor and bought treats for the town children.”

In fact, all that we do know about Mary is pretty interesting, although not necessarily for kids.

The online site for Montana Women’s History has an analysis of Mary’s life worth quoting at length:

"In many ways, Fields transcended the traditional gender boundaries for women of the era. She neither married nor depended on the support of the church. Handy with a gun, she smoked, drank, and swore and took a ‘man’s job’ delivering mail. Because she was a large woman, she wore men’s shirts and jackets. She also socialized with men at the baseball field and in the saloon. In a 1959 issue of Ebony, Montana-born film star Gary Cooper [who knew her when he was a child] reminisced that Fields could ‘could whip any two men in the territory’ and ‘had a fondness for hard liquor that was matched only by her capacity to put it away.’

The Mary Fields of legend is a masculine figure; her traditionally feminine attributes are typically underplayed. Yet Fields generally wore skirts, loved to grow flowers, and babysat many of Cascade’s children. A subtle racism may explain this discrepancy. The people of Cascade accepted Fields while she was alive and celebrated her after death, but historian Dee Garceau-Hagen points to nicknames like ‘Black Mary,’ ‘Colored Mary,’ and ‘Nigger Mary’ and argues that Cascade residents ‘affirmed a caste system based on race, even as they celebrated Fields’ notoriety.’

As the sole African American in Cascade, Fields did not have the benefit of a close-knit black community, such as developed in towns like Helena, Great Falls, Butte, and Fort Benton. And because she was also ‘outside the boundaries of respectable womanhood,’ Fields was in some ways on her own. It is hard to imagine that Fields did not feel the sting of prejudice, or at least the ‘friendly contempt’ described by African American musician W. C. Handy on a visit to Helena in 1897. Nevertheless, she certainly lived an inspirational life—and one forged on her own terms. A writer for Negro Digest in 1950 cast her as a role model: ‘She was, in the best sense, a pioneer woman. She was rough and she was tough.’ And as Gary Cooper opined, she was born a slave, but ‘lived to become one of the freest souls ever to draw a breath or a .38.’” ( )