It’s inspiring, but it presents Lomong more as an object lesson than as a living person.
The story of a Sudanese “Lost Boy” who pursued and achieved his dream of running in the Olympics.
Seized at age 6 from his village by “rebel soldiers,” Lopepe (a nickname in his native Buya later altered to “Lopez”) escapes with other captives and runs for days to reach the U.N. refugee camp of Kakuma in Kenya. One day he joins a group of children watching the 2000 Olympics on a farmer’s battery-powered TV, and the sight of runner Michael Johnson fires up his ambition to become an Olympian himself. His adoption by a white New York couple and his recruitment by the trainer of a local high school’s cross-country team sends him on his way—to, ultimately, not only the 2008 (and, unacknowledged here, 2012) Games, but a joyful reunion with his biological parents, college, and a foundation dedicated to relief work in South Sudan. Except for name-dropping (notably a reference to “Brittany, the love of his life,” who gets no further mention) Eulate’s account is sketchy, particularly after Lomong’s arrival in the U.S., and thickly sentimental: he last appears figuratively receiving “the medal life gives you when you fulfill your dreams.” Uyá’s illustrations are likewise spare of detail, with stylized, folk-art–like human figures stiffly posed against near-featureless backgrounds.
It’s inspiring, but it presents Lomong more as an object lesson than as a living person. (Picture book/biography. 8-10)Pub Date: May 16, 2017
ISBN: 978-84-16733-15-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Cuento de Luz
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An immensely popular figure in his day, the Brazilian-born Alberto Santos-Dumont invented a personal dirigible that he...
So the Wright Brothers were the first to fly? Au contraire, asserts Griffith in this rare portrait of a little-known (in this country, at least) early aviator.
An immensely popular figure in his day, the Brazilian-born Alberto Santos-Dumont invented a personal dirigible that he steered around the Eiffel Tower and drove out to run errands. Griffith’s prose isn’t always polished (“If Blériot succeeded to fly first….”), but her narrative makes her subject’s stature clear as she takes him from a luncheon with jeweler Louis Cartier, who invented the wristwatch to help his friend keep track of his time in the air, to his crowning aeronautical achievement in 1906: He beat out both the secretive Wrights and pushy rival Louis Blériot as the first to fly an aircraft that could take off and land on its own power. The author covers his career in more detail in a closing note (with photos), ascribing his eventual suicide in part to remorse that, instead of ushering in an era of peace as he had predicted, aircraft were being used in warfare. Montanari’s genteel pastel-and-chalk pictures of turn-of-the-20th-century Paris and Parisians don’t capture how much larger than life Santos-Dumont was, but they do succeed in helping Griffith bring him to American audiences.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0011-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
Big questions, posed with majestic simplicity—and packaged with a CD of the original track. .
Dylan's lyrics succeed here better than many other songs that find their way to picture books.
Bucking the usual dismal results when popular songs are forced into an illustrated format, this one makes a brave go—though children will likely be less drawn to it than their parents and grandparents. Paired to Dylan’s often-abstract 1963 lyrics—which, as music scholar Greil Marcus notes in a perceptive tribute as an afterword, can be either “hopeful” or “full of doubt,” depending on how they are sung—Muth’s (Zen Shorts, 2005; City Dog, Country Frog, 2010) full-spread, Impressionistic watercolors are equally open to interpretation. They place a cast of introspective young children with eyes cast down or to the side near roads and on rolling grassy hills, in a misty wood or floating in a small boat past a prison wall and a mountain of ice. Adding paper airplanes, a bright red balloon, a guitar, a cannon shrouded in national flags (topped by those of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China) and other openly metaphorical details, the artist creates an airy, expansive setting for the spare words that positively compels pensive contemplation.
Big questions, posed with majestic simplicity—and packaged with a CD of the original track. . (artist’s afterword) (Picture book. 8-10, adult)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4027-8002-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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