The text of a 1974 picture-book biography of the poet Langston Hughes is reprinted, with new illustrations. The narrative focuses on Hughes’s youth, describing how the break-up of his parents’ marriage led to an unsettled childhood spent first with his storytelling grandmother and later, in adolescence, with his often unemployed mother. From these experiences, coupled with a disappointing relationship with his embittered father, grew Hughes’s passion for setting down in verse his pride in his people. Unfortunately, the text itself demonstrates little passion, and almost no sense of poetry—a sad absence in a book about one of the 20th-century’s greatest American poets. An author’s note, new for this edition, indicates that a passion for the subject is there, despite appearances; it seems that here Walker has simply succumbed to the “dumbing-down” syndrome that afflicts so many writers for adults when they turn their pens to children’s books. The elegance of her prose for adults is largely missing in this offering, which features choppy, pedestrian language instead: “This [discrimination] made Langston mad. He thought it was stupid for white people not to hire him just because his skin was black.” Deeter’s muted illustrations do little to compensate for the lackluster text; mostly static, they at times verge on the sentimental. One exception to this is a striking, Dillon-like composition that pictures a monumental black man growing organically out of the land around the Mississippi; this accompanies one of the two poems included in the text, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” The writer of those poems deserves better than this. No bibliography or source notes are included. (Picture book/biography. 7-10)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-06-021518-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Spinning lively invented details around skimpy historical records, Taylor profiles the 19th-century chef credited with inventing the potato chip. Crum, thought to be of mixed Native-American and African-American ancestry, was a lover of the outdoors, who turned cooking skills learned from a French hunter into a kitchen job at an upscale resort in New York state. As the story goes, he fried up the first batch of chips in a fit of pique after a diner complained that his French fries were cut too thickly. Morrison’s schoolroom, kitchen and restaurant scenes seem a little more integrated than would have been likely in the 1850s, but his sinuous figures slide through them with exaggerated elegance, adding a theatrical energy as delicious as the snack food they celebrate. The author leaves Crum presiding over a restaurant (also integrated) of his own, closes with a note separating fact from fiction and also lists her sources. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-58430-255-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
An emotional entry point to a larger, necessary discussion on this complex and difficult subject.
The paths of four migrant children from different Central American countries cross as they enter Mexico, and together they continue their journey to the United States.
Though their reasons for undertaking the perilous journey are different, their hopes are not: They all hope for asylum in the U.S. Ten-year-old Alessandra, from Guatemala, hopes to reunite with her mother, who left four years ago. Thirteen-year-old Laura and her 7-year-old brother, Nando, from El Salvador, are going to live with relatives in the U.S. And 14-year-old Rodrigo, from Honduras, will try to join his parents in Nebraska rather than join a local gang. Along the way they encounter danger, hunger, kindness from strangers, and, most importantly, the strength of friendship with one another. Through the four children, the book provides but the barest glimpse into the reasons, hopes, and dreams of the thousands of unaccompanied minors that arrive at the U.S.–Mexico border every year. Artist Guevara has added Central American folk art–influenced details to her illustrations, giving depth to the artwork. These embellishments appear as line drawings superimposed on the watercolor scenes. The backmatter explains the reasons for the book, helping to place it within the larger context of ongoing projects at Baylor University related to the migration crisis in Central America.
An emotional entry point to a larger, necessary discussion on this complex and difficult subject. (Picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64442-008-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Six Foot Press
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
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