We Are Mighty: 12 Ordinary Americans Who Did the Next Needed Thing by Sharon McMahon, Susanna Chapman
Published by Alfred A. Knopf on May 19, 2026
Genres: Non-Fiction
Format: Picture Book Nonfiction
Source: MSL Book Review
Goodreads

Sometimes all that’s needed in this world is for someone to step up and do what they see needs doing. Square the shoulders, pull from their own strengths and gather people to help, that’s how things get done. In this book we see 12 ordinary Americans who saw something that needed to be done and got to doing it; ordinary people who in the end made an extraordinary difference.

Readers will meet Ida Lewis who saw four boys in distress in the ocean during a storm and rowed a boat out to save them without a second thought to the danger she was putting herself in.They’ll also meet María De López who saw the inequities faced by women and fought to change them. María wanted to help in the war in France but was told she couldn’t as she was a woman. She asked “why?”and soon she was working with the Red Cross to get wounded soldiers to lifesaving help at hospitals.

Read about them and ten more remarkable, ordinary individual’s stories who are paired with beautiful illustrations to show how extraordinary we can all be.

Ages 6+
Reviewed by MaryAnn Lopes, Elementary Librarian. Lewiston Public Schools, Lewiston, Maine.