Carpenter has crafted an engaging and informative in-depth look at the two Grimke sisters who both wrote and spoke about abolition and women’s rights. Sarah Grimke and Angelina Grimke Weld left their slave-owning Charleston family’s home to move North in pursuit of a simple Quaker lifestyle that didn’t rely on the enslavement of others, but they soon felt the call to speak about the evils of holding slaves from their firsthand experience. Readers will appreciate the references to many of their well-known contemporaries such as Harriet Beecher Stowe who used some of Sarah’s experiences in her groundbreaking novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin and many luminaries of the women’s rights movement such as Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Half cousins Archibald Grimke, a renowned Black lawyer and vice-president of the NAACP as well as Francis Grimke, a prominent Black clergyman, are also included. This lends the text an honest and inclusive lens that doesn’t shy away from recognizing the abuse of enslaved women. Appropriate for upper middle-grade through adult readers, the book includes several photographs and excellent back matter.

Arm in Arm is a sometimes heartwarming, sometimes heartbreaking historical narrative about the Grimke family. Spotlighting two of the sisters, Sarah and Angelina, this is full of facts spun like a story. At times sweet, frightening and enlightening, Arm in Arm is a must read for those who value religion, family and equality above all else.

Arm in Arm is a fascinating account of the lives of the Grimké sisters, who advocated for abolition and women's rights in the 19th century.

Although their father owned several plantations, Sarah detested slavery at a young age, recounting an instance where she saw an enslaved man being whipped. This had such a profound effect on five-year-old Sarah that she attempted to board a steamer to live in a place without slavery. Her parents explained that one day, she would be the one to order whippings, but Sarah was horrified by the thought of owning another person.

Following their father's death, Sarah's abolitionist beliefs began to deepen and influenced her younger sister, Angelina. The sisters became involved in the Quaker movement, but some elders were critical of women taking such a public role in political debates. Despite the disapproval they faced, the Grimké sisters became prominent members of the antislavery movement.