Demi wields her gifts to celebrate Florence Nightingale, who transformed the care of the sick and injured.
Florence Nightingale was born to wealthy English parents in Florence, Italy, and from an early age studied nursing and the care of the sick. As her family traveled from England to Italy, France and Germany, she visited hospitals and poorhouses to teach herself and to compare healing strategies. She went to Turkey to assist injured soldiers from the Crimean War, working to ensure sanitary conditions and to make healthful food and medicines available. The text is direct and clear, conveying complex information fluidly. Demi’s pictures feature her exquisite line and magnificent use of color, manipulating the flat, decorative space she uses to advance the story. She makes beautiful decorative patterns out of difficult and sometimes horrific situations. Nurses cleaning, scrubbing, comforting and assisting are directed by Nightingale, always pictured in a midnight-blue dress or cloak. One astonishing, gutsy double-page spread depicts the war hospital in Turkey. Leaking walls, rats, garbage and overflowing chamber pots among the stricken soldiers make a formal backdrop to officials rebuffing Nightingale and her nurses. With the turn of the page, readers see the changes in cleanliness, care and mood Nightingale effected. Characteristically beautiful illustrations nevertheless provide a pull-no-punches appreciation of the Lady with the Lamp. (timeline, further reading) (Picture book/biography. 7-11)
Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9729-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
A picture book worth reading about a historical figure worth remembering.
An honestly told biography of an important politician whose name every American should know.
Published while the United States has its first African-American president, this story of John Roy Lynch, the first African-American speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives, lays bare the long and arduous path black Americans have walked to obtain equality. The title’s first three words—“The Amazing Age”—emphasize how many more freedoms African-Americans had during Reconstruction than for decades afterward. Barton and Tate do not shy away from honest depictions of slavery, floggings, the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow laws, or the various means of intimidation that whites employed to prevent blacks from voting and living lives equal to those of whites. Like President Barack Obama, Lynch was of biracial descent; born to an enslaved mother and an Irish father, he did not know hard labor until his slave mistress asked him a question that he answered honestly. Freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, Lynch had a long and varied career that points to his resilience and perseverance. Tate’s bright watercolor illustrations often belie the harshness of what takes place within them; though this sometimes creates a visual conflict, it may also make the book more palatable for young readers unaware of the violence African-Americans have suffered than fully graphic images would. A historical note, timeline, author’s and illustrator’s notes, bibliography and map are appended.
A picture book worth reading about a historical figure worth remembering. (Picture book biography. 7-10)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5379-0
Page Count: 50
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
Medically, both squicky and hopeful; emotionally, unbelievably squeaky-clean.
A 12-year-old copes with a brain tumor.
Maddie likes potatoes and fake mustaches. Kids at school are nice (except one whom readers will see instantly is a bully); soon they’ll get to perform Shakespeare scenes in a unit they’ve all been looking forward to. But recent dysfunctions in Maddie’s arm and leg mean, stunningly, that she has a brain tumor. She has two surgeries, the first successful, the second taking place after the book’s end, leaving readers hanging. The tumor’s not malignant, but it—or the surgeries—could cause sight loss, personality change, or death. The descriptions of surgery aren’t for the faint of heart. The authors—parents of a real-life Maddie who really had a brain tumor—imbue fictional Maddie’s first-person narration with quirky turns of phrase (“For the love of potatoes!”) and whimsy (she imagines her medical battles as epic fantasy fights and pretends MRI stands for Mustard Rat from Indiana or Mustaches Rock Importantly), but they also portray her as a model sick kid. She’s frightened but never acts out, snaps, or resists. Her most frequent commentary about the tumor, having her skull opened, and the possibility of death is “Boo” or “Super boo.” She even shoulders the bully’s redemption. Maddie and most characters are white; one cringe-inducing hallucinatory surgery dream involves “chanting island natives” and a “witch doctor lady.”
Medically, both squicky and hopeful; emotionally, unbelievably squeaky-clean. (authors’ note, discussion questions) (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62972-330-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Shadow Mountain
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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