The Lizzie Borden Ax Murders

by Carla Mooney

The Lizzie Borden Ax Murdersexplores all sides of these unsolved ax murders and the woman suspected of committing them. It discusses police investigations, conspiracy theories, historical impacts, and more. Features include a glossary, references, websites, source notes, and an index. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Essential Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime

112 pages, Hardcover

Published December 15, 2019

About the author

Carla Mooney is an award-winning author of numerous nonfiction STEAM books for kids and teens. She hopes to spark a healthy curiosity and love of nonfiction in youth.

Reviews

[Rebecca Lowe]

Middle school appropriate. I had no idea that this wasn’t an open and shut case. The way the media and history have portrayed Lizzie Borden, I thought it was a known thing that she had killed her parents and I also thought she was much younger. Reading this made me realize how distorted her story has become and how public perception turned against her. This would make for a great lesson on media bias.

[Sandy]

I like how the book was set up. And how most of the gory stuff was not displayed. (Although there were pictures of Mr. Borden) It's a shame we don't know who killed Mr. and Mrs. Borden, and that some people believe Lizzie got away with murder. "She didn't "act" like a grieving daughter". Not everyone reacts the same about death. My library has a number of books about famous murders and murderers. I am going to have to make a trip to the library soon.

[Beth]

Wow, this is the first book in this series to have a strong opinion. Or maybe there's a consensus that Lizzie Borden is probably guilty (like in the JFK assassination) and only conspiracy theorists think otherwise? I've only read one other history book and I came away with a feeling that it was an open question, and then one horror book that said she did it but not really because her parents had already been consumed by eldritch monsters. The author never came out to say GUILTY, but I felt the text was definitely leaning that way.

The information is given clearly, and aside from a few useless graphs (the map of where the prison was located in Massachusetts seemed a bit pointless) I liked the mix of text and illustration. The back matter was incomplete; I'm hoping that the ecopy I received from the publisher is an ARC and they had time to fix it before printing the book (missing bullet points in the Important Facts section, blank spots in the bibliography). It's definitely a book to read in school rather than for fun, but would be a good basis for a report or an opinion piece on the verdict.

The publisher provided me with an ecopy of the book for review.

[ellie]

This is a good book for older middle grade readers. I’ve always been curious about Lizzie Borden’s case and her outcome. I think she did it. This book does a good job of explaining the case plainly and digestibly.

[Alex]

Lizzie Borden will never not be fascinating to me…