A well-executed biography of an extraordinary woman.
A peek at the woman known as the “First Lady of Parachuting.”
“Georgia Ann Thompson weighed only three pounds at birth on April 8th, 1893.” These words are accompanied by a pleasing, colorful portrait of three reverent people surrounding a woman cradling a baby. The word tiny floats above in a word balloon. Readers learn that the nickname “stuck.” Dahl goes on to detail Tiny’s life of child labor from the age of 6, culminating with Tiny atop a tree at sunset, envisioning herself “rising up” from a life of poverty. By 1907, she had convinced parachutist Charles Broadwick to teach her to parachute from hot air balloons as part of his traveling act. (Broadwick adopted her.) Her compromise: At age 15, she endured the embarrassment of being dressed as a baby doll and labeled the “Doll Girl.” After winning accolades as “the most daring parachutist,” Tiny became the first woman to parachute from an airplane and then the first person to deliberately free fall from a parachute. The latter was a dramatic, happy accident that both saved her life and inspired further development of rip cords and of Charles Broadwick’s pack parachute invention. Excellent choices of quotations from the brave aeronaut are nicely interspaced with thoughtful, understated text and complementary art.
A well-executed biography of an extraordinary woman. (author’s note, photographs, bibliography) (Picture-book biography. 6-10)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9781499813944
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era.
The New Orleans school child who famously broke the color line in 1960 while surrounded by federal marshals describes the early days of her experience from a 6-year-old’s perspective.
Bridges told her tale to younger children in 2009’s Ruby Bridges Goes to School, but here the sensibility is more personal, and the sometimes-shocking historical photos have been replaced by uplifting painted scenes. “I didn’t find out what being ‘the first’ really meant until the day I arrived at this new school,” she writes. Unfrightened by the crowd of “screaming white people” that greets her at the school’s door (she thinks it’s like Mardi Gras) but surprised to find herself the only child in her classroom, and even the entire building, she gradually realizes the significance of her act as (in Smith’s illustration) she compares a small personal photo to the all-White class photos posted on a bulletin board and sees the difference. As she reflects on her new understanding, symbolic scenes first depict other dark-skinned children marching into classes in her wake to friendly greetings from lighter-skinned classmates (“School is just school,” she sensibly concludes, “and kids are just kids”) and finally an image of the bright-eyed icon posed next to a soaring bridge of reconciliation. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era. (author and illustrator notes, glossary) (Autobiographical picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-75388-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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