This excellent and uplifting account of a grim American era promotes hope and kindness.
An author and inspirational speaker offers a picture-book biography of her father that explores segregation and access to education.
Set during the 1930s in a segregated Mississippi, Burgess’ (Flawless Leadership, 2016, etc.) work chronicles how, as a boy, Earnest McEwen Jr. loved to read anything he could get his hands on. His black parents both worked in the cotton fields, and Ernie dreamed of a better life for his family. He wanted to go to college. Ernie finished high school, where he met his future wife, Millie. After getting a job as a janitor at the University of Mississippi, he met two professors who introduced him to William Faulkner. The author changed Ernie’s life by paying his tuition to Alcorn, a university for black students. “Pass it on”—the only repayment Faulkner requested—became Ernie’s motto, which he gave to his daughters, as explained in the author’s note at the end. The superb story is full of hope, showing people reaching across boundaries to help one another and provide a better life for the next generation. The details in Purnell’s (A Homerun for Bunny, 2013, etc.) beautifully realistic paintings and his attention to the faces of his subjects draw in readers. In this book, initially funded via Kickstarter, Burgess’ vocabulary is accessible. While she never talks down to readers, she presents the material in an approachable fashion.
This excellent and uplifting account of a grim American era promotes hope and kindness.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9986314-2-4
Page Count: 34
Publisher: Two Sylvias Press
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A lovely encouragement to young writers to persist.
This follow-up to How To Read a Story (2005) shows a child going through the steps of creating a story, from choosing an idea through sharing with friends.
A young black child lies in a grassy field writing in a journal, working on “Step 1 / Search for an Idea— / a shiny one.” During a walk to the library, various ideas float in colorful thought bubbles, with exclamation points: “playing soccer! / dogs!” Inside the library, less-distinct ideas, expressed as shapes and pictures, with question marks, float about as the writer collects ideas to choose from. The young writer must then choose a setting, a main character, and a problem for that protagonist. Plotting, writing with detail, and revising are described in child-friendly terms and shown visually, in the form of lists and notes on faux pieces of paper. Finally, the writer sits in the same field, in a new season, sharing the story with friends. The illustrations feature the child’s writing and drawing as well as images of imagined events from the book in progress bursting off the page. The child’s main character is an adventurous mermaid who looks just like the child, complete with afro-puff pigtails, representing an affirming message about writing oneself into the world. The child’s family, depicted as black, moves in the background of the setting, which is also populated by a multiracial cast.
A lovely encouragement to young writers to persist. (Informational picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4521-5666-8
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit.
The bubble-helmeted feline explains what rockets do and the role they have played in sending people (and animals) into space.
Addressing a somewhat younger audience than in previous outings (Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space, 2013, etc.), Astro Cat dispenses with all but a light shower of “factoroids” to describe how rockets work. A highly selective “History of Space Travel” follows—beginning with a crew of fruit flies sent aloft in 1947, later the dog Laika (her dismal fate left unmentioned), and the human Yuri Gagarin. Then it’s on to Apollo 11 in 1969; the space shuttles Discovery, Columbia, and Challenger (the fates of the latter two likewise elided); the promise of NASA’s next-gen Orion and the Space Launch System; and finally vague closing references to other rockets in the works for local tourism and, eventually, interstellar travel. In the illustrations the spacesuited professor, joined by a mouse and cat in similar dress, do little except float in space and point at things. Still, the art has a stylish retro look, and portraits of Sally Ride and Guion Bluford diversify an otherwise all-white, all-male astronaut corps posing heroically or riding blocky, geometric spacecraft across starry reaches.
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-911171-55-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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