Brown begins his beautifully constructed picture-book biography with young Sam’s dangerous escapade on the frozen Mississippi River. Focusing on childhood incidents that will later appear in Twain’s books, Brown cunningly recalls the opening event in his conclusion: “Bye and bye, he remembered his boyhood, the glad morning of his life. As if skating ice cakes on a frozen river, Sam skipped from memory to memory and wove together great tales. . . . ” Brown’s eloquent, old-fashioned language echoes Twain’s own words, also generously sprinkled throughout. “My literature attracted the town’s attention, but not its admiration,” Brown quotes. Like his subject, Brown also skips from incident to incident, telling just enough to hold the reader’s interest, and like Twain, he makes the reader think, with his handling of such incidents as young Sam’s response to slavery, and his friendship with the outcast Tom Blankenship (the model for Huck Finn). Lively watercolors deftly depict Clemens’s exuberant character and youthful shenanigans, while their subdued tones are nostalgic. Includes bibliography and author’s note. (Picture book/biography. 8-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2003
ISBN: 0-618-17997-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2003
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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