A gentle, accessible take on resilience.
A tree survives the Holocaust, though most of the children who cared for it don’t.
It’s winter in Terezin, the Czechoslovakian propaganda camp with which the Nazis tricked the credulous Red Cross into believing their treatment of Jews was humane. Here, children are allowed to attend school, and one teacher, Irma Lauscher, has the children plant a smuggled-in maple sapling. Miraculously, the children keep the tree alive in the camp, even as they themselves weaken or die. Art and text combine for an honest yet optimistic and age-appropriate portrayal of a difficult topic. When they first see the tree, the children are still round-faced if ragged, their pale, large-eyed faces capable of joy. As the war continues and the tree grows, the children’s faces grow wearier, their bodies huddled against cold and despair. Many of the children vanish entirely; although only the author’s note clarifies that these children have been murdered in Auschwitz, a foreboding spread of a deportation train (“taken away on trains to a place that was even worse”) nonetheless makes clear that their fates are dire. Despite the mass murder, the tree survives—as does Irma. In 2021, a cutting from the tree was planted in New York City. Now the somber hues, punctuated by reds, give way to a hopeful green surrounding the racially diverse children of New York—round-faced and joyful.
A gentle, accessible take on resilience. (sources) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780593617120
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Rocky Pond Books/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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
A straightforward and informative primer on Pride and the community it engenders.
Why do rainbow flags often appear each June? Stonewall Award–winning author Lukoff offers an explanation.
Every year, queer folks and their allies come together to observe Pride—“a reminder for everyone to be proud of who they are.” After the Stonewall rebellion in June 1969 in New York City—a night when gay men and women and trans people “decided to fight back” after enduring frequent arrests by police—and the yearly parades that followed in its wake, San Francisco designer Gilbert Baker developed the rainbow Pride flag as a “symbol of hope for LGBTQIA+ people.” Lukoff explores the meanings behind the different colors of the most common Pride flag, from yellow (“sunlight”), which represents coming out of the closet and “being out in the light,” to orange (“healing”), which conveys the importance of seeking support. Though this yearly celebration has been co-opted by rampant commercialism, Lukoff returns to its roots, focusing on the community-building aspects of Pride. Other flags are featured such as the trans, genderqueer, asexual, and bisexual flags, yet they aren’t labeled or delved into further—a missed opportunity to emphasize the ever-growing queer community (the Progress Pride flag isn’t included at all). The upbeat digital illustrations depict people of different ages, races, genders, and sexualities. A note for parents offers basic child-friendly definitions of each of the terms in the initialism LGBTQIA.
A straightforward and informative primer on Pride and the community it engenders. (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593807859
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Golden Books/Random
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
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