The work of an excellent storyteller, Jane Addams: Pioneerfor Social Justice is a collection of vivid and detailed episodes. The people Meigs portrays come alive through their actions, and Meigs skillfully chooses incidents that both catch the reader's attention and illustrate a point about Addams's life or attitudes. But the author's style of recounting each episode in its entirety sometimes blurs the narrative's time sequence, and the story occasionally seems to move in a chain of overlapping circles. Likewise, the author's sympathy for Addams and her philosophy adds a sense of enthusiasm to the narrative, but at times Meigs seems to be trying a little too hard to persuade her readers to adopt Addams's philosophy.