While championing female farmers, this sumptuous book also celebrates discovery and good taste.
This latest installment in the Food Heroes series explores how a Massachusetts woman—and friend of the author—became a farmer by learning to grow what she enjoyed eating.
Inspired by the scent of herbs at a local market, Eva Sommaripa started small by growing parsley, dill, and basil for her family on a parcel of land between the ocean and a forest. Martin’s lyrical verse describes the pleasure that Eva experienced: “Tending plants under the blue sky / soil on her hands, birdsong all around, / Eva’s best good time.” Eventually, she added other greens and herbs, with enough to spare for local chefs and her farm workers’ lunches. Eva’s curiosity about the life beneath her work boots led to research about the creatures living there, from worms to microbes. Richly textured spreads and spot art, composed of prints and collage elements, illuminate the vital roles of those “critters” and display Eva’s “compost buffet,” which includes coffee husks and “fish and chips” (seaweed and shells). “Eva’s Garden” has now been in business for more than 50 years; her nurturing has expanded to local children and new farmers who come to discover her sustainable methods. The joy Eva finds in the natural world culminates in her annual potluck, held in honor of the solstice. Eva’s community is a diverse one.
While championing female farmers, this sumptuous book also celebrates discovery and good taste. (notes from the author and Sommaripa, more info on Sommaripa, Eva’s recipe for growing pea shoots, information about underground creatures, resources) (Picture-book biography. 5-9)Pub Date: June 25, 2024
ISBN: 9780998047775
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Readers to Eaters
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era.
The New Orleans school child who famously broke the color line in 1960 while surrounded by federal marshals describes the early days of her experience from a 6-year-old’s perspective.
Bridges told her tale to younger children in 2009’s Ruby Bridges Goes to School, but here the sensibility is more personal, and the sometimes-shocking historical photos have been replaced by uplifting painted scenes. “I didn’t find out what being ‘the first’ really meant until the day I arrived at this new school,” she writes. Unfrightened by the crowd of “screaming white people” that greets her at the school’s door (she thinks it’s like Mardi Gras) but surprised to find herself the only child in her classroom, and even the entire building, she gradually realizes the significance of her act as (in Smith’s illustration) she compares a small personal photo to the all-White class photos posted on a bulletin board and sees the difference. As she reflects on her new understanding, symbolic scenes first depict other dark-skinned children marching into classes in her wake to friendly greetings from lighter-skinned classmates (“School is just school,” she sensibly concludes, “and kids are just kids”) and finally an image of the bright-eyed icon posed next to a soaring bridge of reconciliation. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era. (author and illustrator notes, glossary) (Autobiographical picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-75388-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
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
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