A delightfully winsome and educational biography of Will Rogers for young readers.
Taylor’s illustrated children’s book teaches kids about the diverse influences on legendary entertainer Will Rogers.
Known for his folksy humor (his radio act helped to inspire late-night comedy), Will Rogers’ legacy is one of kindness, dedication, and hard work. As the Will Rogers interpreter at the Will Rogers Memorial Museum, Taylor has passed along this legacy in his story times, school visits, and travels around the country; students see him in cowboy boots with a rope in hand, re-enacting Rogers’ routines and bringing history to life. The author begins the narrative in Rogers’ childhood in the late 19th century, when he learned his famous rope tricks, and continues into his adulthood and his success as a radio sensation whose popularity affected church attendance (“Without his rope, Will discovered a whole new way of sharing his jokes and ideas with even larger audiences”). Readers will also learn Rogers’ most well-known saying: “I never met a man I didn’t like.” This is an engaging picture-book biography; the illustrations by White are delightfully whimsical while remaining stylistically simple—a neat trick in itself. Evoking a Western feel, as one would expect from a book about someone raised on a ranch in Oklahoma, the illustrations reflect happiness and adventure while directly supporting the text. Themes of diversity and inclusion run throughout the narrative; readers can easily see, both in the text and the pictures, how Rogers was influenced by a diverse array of people, including his parents, other cowboys, and his wife. The reflection questions at the end of each section encourage children to connect what they’ve learned to their own lives. (Taylor enjoins readers to “mak[e] connections with others and us[e] [their] talents to bring folks together.”) The foreword by Reba McEntire and Rex Linn is icing on the cake, providing added authenticity.
A delightfully winsome and educational biography of Will Rogers for young readers.Pub Date: yesterday
ISBN: 9780881441611
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Yorkshire Publishing
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A supplemental rather than introductory book on the great artist.
Frida Kahlo’s strong affection for and identification with animals form the lens through which readers view her life and work in this picture-book biography.
Each two-page spread introduces one or more of her pets, comparing her characteristics to theirs and adding biographical details. Confusingly for young readers, the beginning pages reference pets she owned as an adult, yet the illustrations and events referred to come from earlier in her life. Bonito the parrot perches in a tree overlooking young Frida and her family in her childhood home and pops up again later, just before the first mention of Diego Rivera. Granizo, the fawn, another pet from her adult years, is pictured beside a young Frida and her father along with a description of “her life as a little girl.” The author’s note adds important details about Kahlo’s life and her significance as an artist, as well as recommending specific paintings that feature her beloved animals. Expressive acrylic paintings expertly evoke Kahlo’s style and color palette. While young animal lovers will identify with her attachment to her pets and may enjoy learning about the Aztec origins of her Xolo dogs and the meaning of turkeys in ancient Mexico, the book may be of most interest to those who already have an interest in Kahlo’s life.
A supplemental rather than introductory book on the great artist. (Picture book/biography. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7358-4269-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: NorthSouth
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
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Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit.
The bubble-helmeted feline explains what rockets do and the role they have played in sending people (and animals) into space.
Addressing a somewhat younger audience than in previous outings (Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space, 2013, etc.), Astro Cat dispenses with all but a light shower of “factoroids” to describe how rockets work. A highly selective “History of Space Travel” follows—beginning with a crew of fruit flies sent aloft in 1947, later the dog Laika (her dismal fate left unmentioned), and the human Yuri Gagarin. Then it’s on to Apollo 11 in 1969; the space shuttles Discovery, Columbia, and Challenger (the fates of the latter two likewise elided); the promise of NASA’s next-gen Orion and the Space Launch System; and finally vague closing references to other rockets in the works for local tourism and, eventually, interstellar travel. In the illustrations the spacesuited professor, joined by a mouse and cat in similar dress, do little except float in space and point at things. Still, the art has a stylish retro look, and portraits of Sally Ride and Guion Bluford diversify an otherwise all-white, all-male astronaut corps posing heroically or riding blocky, geometric spacecraft across starry reaches.
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-911171-55-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
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