Wanda Gág’s millions and billions and trillions of fans will be as enthralled by her true life’s story as they are by her made-up ones. Growing up in a large clan of Czech and German descent, she caught fire for drawing from her father, a commercial and fine artist. Forced to become the chief breadwinner as a teenager, she supported her family through hard times by teaching and by painting postcards and magazine illustrations—going to formal art training only after two of her younger sisters had finished school. A 1928 gallery show in New York brought her a contract for Millions of Cats, often adjudged the first modern picture book, and then a string of other award-winning original stories and translated folktales whose characters and imagery likewise drew on her cultural heritage and childhood memories. Ray intersperses this simply written profile with quotes from Gág’s memoirs and other writings, and supplies hazy, warm-toned scenes that capture both the strongly European look of the artist’s Midwestern community and her lively, determined, cute-as-a-button personality. (author’s notes, bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 8-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-670-06292-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Ringgold’s biography of Rosa Parks packs substantial material into a few pages, but with a light touch, and with the ring of authenticity that gives her act of weary resistance all the respect it deserves. Narrating the book is the bus that Parks took that morning 45 years ago; it recounts the signal events in Parks’s life to a young girl who boarded it to go to school. A decent amount of the material will probably be new to children, for Parks is so intimately associated with the Montgomery Bus Boycott that her work with the NAACP before the bus incident is often overlooked, as is her later role as a community activist in Detroit with Congressman John Conyers. Ringgold, through the bus, also informs readers of Parks’s youth in rural Alabama, where Klansmen and nightriders struck fear into the lives of African-Americans. These experiences make her refusal to release her seat all the more courageous, for the consequences of resistance were not gentle. All the events are depicted in emotive naive artwork that underscores their truth; Ringgold delivers Parks’s story without hyperbole, but rather as a life lived with pride, conviction, and consequence. (Picture book/biography. 5-9)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-689-81892-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
From Kroll (Lewis and Clark, 1994, etc.), a handsomely illustrated biography that introduces a fascinating historical figure and will make readers yearn for more information. The facts are covered, including Fulton’s stints as sign painter, air-gun inventor, and apprentice jeweler; Kroll states clearly which details cannot be pinned down, and the probable order of events and incidents. The text is informative and lively, although in places the transitions are abrupt, e.g., one of the only references to Fulton’s personal life—“Meanwhile, on January 7, 1808, Fulton had married Harriet Livingston. She bore him four children”—quickly reverts to details on the building of boats. Warm gold-toned paintings convey a sense of times past and complement the text. Especially appealing are the depictions of the steamships. A welcome volume. (chronology) (Picture book/biography. 6-10)
Pub Date: March 15, 1999
ISBN: 0-8234-1433-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
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