Thank you Livingston Press at the University of West Alabama for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own. No review was required in return for an advance reading copy and no review was promised.

I just finished Accidental Activist: Changing the World One Small Step at a Time, by Mary Allen Jolley.

The author spent 10 years working for Congressman Carl Elliott (D-Alabama) in the late 1950s and early 1960s, who she went on to have a 35-year friendship with. There were a few interesting stories involving the work in the congressman’s office. Jolly did a lot of work on education and library issues while working for the congressman. This set her on the path for other work in that area.

The time in Elliott’s office was really the only highlight of the book. All of the interesting material came from that time in her life. Then, some of her subsequent work was for the American Vocational Association, an organization of 35,000 educators across the country, and also served as a consultant to President Johnson’s National Advisory Commission on Libraries.

The portion on her time in the congressman’s office would probably be worth a B grade for that section, but overall there was not enough meat on the bone here for it to be an interesting book overall. So I am going to have to give this book a C. NetGalley requires grades on a 1-5 star system. In my personal conversion system, a C equates to 2 stars. (A or A+: 5 stars, B+: 4 stars, B: 3 stars, C: 2 stars, D or F: 1 star).

This review has been posted at NetGalley and my blog, Mr. Book’s Book Reviews.