Woody Guthrie was arguably the greatest of American folk singers. Born in poverty and living most of his troubled life poor, he wrote over a thousand songs chronicling his journeys across Depression-era America. He wrote about the people he knew—the fellow wanderers, the migrant workers, hoboes, unionists, and the dispossessed in all walks of life. Always restless, rootless, and volatile, Guthrie never was able to settle down and make a marriage work, frequently leaving on unannounced trips across the country for weeks on end. Often dirty, smelly, and contentious, Guthrie was a hard friend. Yet his place in American music is secure, and this fascinating, new biography will introduce him to a new generation of readers. Beautifully designed and illustrated with over 70 black-and-white photographs, this well-written account is a fitting tribute to an American legend. Partridge, whose earlier work on Dorothea Lange (Restless Spirit, 1998) was equally powerful, portrays many of the rough and tragic sides of Guthrie’s life: the failed marriages, the “curse of fire,” the lack of responsibility in his personal life, and the tragedy of his final years, when he was hospitalized from 1954 until his death from Huntington’s disease in 1967. She also portrays the triumphs of his music career and offers the stories behind many of his most famous songs. Guthrie’s life spanned the Great Depression, WWII, the McCarthy era, and the early civil-rights movement. His work breathed new life into the folk-music movement, though the rise of folk music coincided with the decline in his health. At the end of this story, readers see 19-year-old Bob Dylan arriving to meet Woody and being inspired to carry on his work. Young readers will also be inspired—to see how Woody Guthrie achieved greatness, though the road he traveled was hard and troubled. A nice one-two punch with Bonnie Christensen’s recent picture book, Woody Guthrie: Poet of the People (2001). (author’s note, endnotes, index) (Nonfiction. 12+)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-670-03535-1
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2002
A winning romance featuring wonderful worldbuilding in both the realistic and magical realms.
A passion for Dungeons & Dragons both brings together and tears apart two love-struck Ohio teens.
After a disastrous debacle with her former best friend and their Dungeons & Dragons group, 16-year-old Quinn finally has a chance to start over in a new town close to her beloved grandmother. On her first day of school, she meets Kashvi, who invites Quinn to join her D&D group’s latest livestreamed campaign. Quinn falls in easily with Kashvi and her friends, including Dungeon Master Sloane (who uses they/them pronouns), Kashvi’s twin brother, Sanjiv, and classmate Logan, whom Quinn instantly falls for. The only problem? The group has a hard and fast policy against its members dating each other. Making matters more complicated, Quinn’s grandmother has decided that Quinn and Logan are meant to be—and she’ll do whatever it takes to bring them together. As the D&D campaign ramps up, Quinn is faced with a conundrum: Can she suppress her feelings for Logan while battling imaginary dragons and real-life trolls by his side? Throughout, Boyce successfully melds humor with heartfelt moments, especially evidenced in the scenes involving Quinn’s grandmother. The portrayal of the D&D group’s dynamics is nuanced and realistic, peppered with sharp dialogue and snappy quips. Quinn and Logan’s relationship is a torturous slow burn with a payoff that’s worth the wait. Most major characters are coded white; Kashvi and Sanjiv are South Asian.
A winning romance featuring wonderful worldbuilding in both the realistic and magical realms. (Romance. 12-18)Pub Date: Dec. 31, 2024
ISBN: 9780593899205
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Delacorte Romance
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
Small but mighty necessary reading.
A miniature manifesto for radical queer acceptance that weaves together the personal and political.
Eli, a cis gay white Jewish man, uses his own identities and experiences to frame and acknowledge his perspective. In the prologue, Eli compares the global Jewish community to the global queer community, noting, “We don’t always get it right, but the importance of showing up for other Jews has been carved into the DNA of what it means to be Jewish. It is my dream that queer people develop the same ideology—what I like to call a Global Queer Conscience.” He details his own isolating experiences as a queer adolescent in an Orthodox Jewish community and reflects on how he and so many others would have benefitted from a robust and supportive queer community. The rest of the book outlines 10 principles based on the belief that an expectation of mutual care and concern across various other dimensions of identity can be integrated into queer community values. Eli’s prose is clear, straightforward, and powerful. While he makes some choices that may be divisive—for example, using the initialism LGBTQIAA+ which includes “ally”—he always makes clear those are his personal choices and that the language is ever evolving.
Small but mighty necessary reading. (resources) (Nonfiction. 14-18)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09368-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
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