An unadorned telling of an artist deserving of additional praise.
The creator of the world’s oldest surviving full-length animated film is celebrated in this straightforward biography.
Born in 1899, Lotte Reiniger was enthralled by the cinema and would tell her own stories to other children by creating tales with cut-paper silhouettes. That skill turned out to have big benefits when she caught the attention of director Paul Wegener. Soon she was designing and directing short films of her own. It was when she was offered the daunting proposal to try her hand at a full-length animated feature film—The Adventures of Prince Achmed—that she invented the tricktisch, a wooden tower that would allow her to film scenes with multiple panes of glass, aka the first multiplane camera. Winters keeps the storytelling crisp and to the point, avoiding any mention of Achmed’s racial stereotyping. Schu’s art, meanwhile, brings the magic of Reiniger’s cut paper technique to life on these pages, integrating the silhouettes with her trials and triumphs. The book is not without its charms but sadly lacks the originality that made Reiniger the master of visual arts as we remember her today. Pairing this book with Fiona Robinson’s Out of the Shadows: How Lotte Reiniger Made the First Animated Fairytale Movie (2022) could allow for a more rounded look at this pioneering artist’s life. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
An unadorned telling of an artist deserving of additional praise. (timeline, author’s note, sources, glossary) (Picture-book biography. 5-10)Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-06-306739-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
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
Self-serving to be sure but also chock-full of worthy values and sentiments.
The junior senator from California introduces family and friends as everyday superheroes.
The endpapers are covered with cascades of, mostly, early childhood snapshots (“This is me contemplating the future”—caregivers of toddlers will recognize that abstracted look). In between, Harris introduces heroes in her life who have shaped her character: her mom and dad, whose superpowers were, respectively, to make her feel special and brave; an older neighbor known for her kindness; grandparents in India and Jamaica who “[stood] up for what’s right” (albeit in unspecified ways); other relatives and a teacher who opened her awareness to a wider world; and finally iconic figures such as Thurgood Marshall and Constance Baker Motley who “protected people by using the power of words and ideas” and whose examples inspired her to become a lawyer. “Heroes are…YOU!” she concludes, closing with a bulleted Hero Code and a timeline of her legal and political career that ends with her 2017 swearing-in as senator. In group scenes, some of the figures in the bright, simplistic digital illustrations have Asian features, some are in wheelchairs, nearly all are people of color. Almost all are smiling or grinning. Roe provides everyone identified as a role model with a cape and poses the author, who is seen at different ages wearing an identifying heart pin or decoration, next to each.
Self-serving to be sure but also chock-full of worthy values and sentiments. (Picture book/memoir. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-984837-49-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
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