A patchwork motif visually pieces together the stories of the two redoubtable abolitionists, who met only once—in Boston in 1864—but who shared a passionate mission. Side text panels relate, in alternating spreads, the lives of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman. Clinton uses vivid language to sketch the broad outlines of their beginnings in slavery and their later careers as speaker for abolition and conductor on the Underground Railroad: “Isabella [Sojourner Truth] was tired of waiting, and broke the chains herself. She walked out and left slavery behind.” Evans’s mixed-media illustrations cleanly incorporate such textures as fabric and broad paint strokes, individual figures outlined with quick black lines that provide definition. The images themselves are expressive—a monumental Truth cradles a baby, a confident-looking Tubman holds a Union courier bag against a Stars-and-Stripes backdrop—and are “stitched” to the text panels. The actual meeting takes up only three spreads and is of necessity imagined (there is no written account), which results in something of an anticlimax, given the build-up. It’s a nifty idea, but, alas, the vessel is somewhat stronger than its story. (Picture book/fictionalized nonfiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-06-050425-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2007
Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-44887-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
The author of Cod’s Tale (2001) again demonstrates a dab hand at recasting his adult work for a younger audience. Here the topic is salt, “the only rock eaten by human beings,” and, as he engrossingly demonstrates, “the object of wars and revolutions” throughout recorded history and before. Between his opening disquisition on its chemical composition and a closing timeline, he explores salt’s sources and methods of extraction, its worldwide economic influences from prehistoric domestication of animals to Gandhi’s Salt March, its many uses as a preservative and industrial product, its culinary and even, as the source for words like “salary” and “salad,” its linguistic history. Along with lucid maps and diagrams, Schindler supplies detailed, sometimes fanciful scenes to go along, finishing with a view of young folk chowing down on orders of French fries as ghostly figures from history look on. Some of Kurlansky’s claims are exaggerated (the Erie and other canals were built to transport more than just salt, for instance), and there are no leads to further resources, but this salutary (in more ways than one) micro-history will have young readers lifting their shakers in tribute. (Picture book/nonfiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-399-23998-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2006
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