An interesting sketch of a pioneering restaurateur that will be sure to inspire budding cooks and changemakers.
When she was a little girl, Alice Waters picked fresh strawberries from the yard of her family’s New Jersey home.
All summer, her family would make delicious food using fresh produce from the garden. The story jumps forward to Alice’s college years in France, where she is amazed by the quality of the food—all made with fresh ingredients. She brings the French style of food preparation back to the U.S., where she eventually opens a restaurant—with the help of friends and patrons—called Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. Alice wants nothing less than to serve the best food ever, made with fresh, local ingredients. Bucking the trend of buying products from giant agribusiness, she drives all over Northern California establishing partnerships with small farms that become her suppliers. Alice’s passion for natural, healthy food starts the farm-to-table and slow food movements, revolutionizing food culture and giving children more access to fresh fruit and vegetables. The present-tense narrative lends immediacy to the story, and Hartland’s detailed gouache illustrations impart a sense of joy and adventure.
An interesting sketch of a pioneering restaurateur that will be sure to inspire budding cooks and changemakers. (appendix, timeline, bibliography) (Picture book biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-6140-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2021
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
A picture book more than worthy of sharing the shelf with Alan Schroeder and Jerry Pinkney’s Minty (1996) and Carole Boston...
A memorable, lyrical reverse-chronological walk through the life of an American icon.
In free verse, Cline-Ransome narrates the life of Harriet Tubman, starting and ending with a train ride Tubman takes as an old woman. “But before wrinkles formed / and her eyes failed,” Tubman could walk tirelessly under a starlit sky. Cline-Ransome then describes the array of roles Tubman played throughout her life, including suffragist, abolitionist, Union spy, and conductor on the Underground Railroad. By framing the story around a literal train ride, the Ransomes juxtapose the privilege of traveling by rail against Harriet’s earlier modes of travel, when she repeatedly ran for her life. Racism still abounds, however, for she rides in a segregated train. While the text introduces readers to the details of Tubman’s life, Ransome’s use of watercolor—such a striking departure from his oil illustrations in many of his other picture books—reveals Tubman’s humanity, determination, drive, and hope. Ransome’s lavishly detailed and expansive double-page spreads situate young readers in each time and place as the text takes them further into the past.
A picture book more than worthy of sharing the shelf with Alan Schroeder and Jerry Pinkney’s Minty (1996) and Carole Boston Weatherford and Kadir Nelson’s Moses (2006). (Picture book/biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2047-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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