An odd subject for a full-length treatment, perhaps, considering the notables whom Fritz has handled more lightly. But the same winning familiarity that made her shorter, somewhat younger biographies successful works well also in this somewhat fuller and more conventional life of Stonewall Jackson—whose shyness and rigidity made him an unpopular student and teacher but a beloved legend as a Confederate general. Fritz points up Jackson's eccentric ways (which included sleeping between wet sheets to improve his digestion, and constantly sucking on lemons), his unbending strictness, his passion for danger and battle, the inhuman demands he made on himself and his men, and the driving ambition that was ever at war with his strong religious beliefs. (Once, after a promotion and prominent victory, he wondered if he shouldn't have been a minister of God instead.) And Fritz fills out the portrait with the fond little jokes and anecdotes the men exchanged about their leader's peculiarities. Fritz's battle reporting is another victory for her method. While neither highlighting the violence nor making light of the horrors, she gives readers some feeling of being there—by quoting from the soldiers' disillusioned letters home, by showing scenes of Rebel-Yankee interchange between battles, by noting peripheral details such as an iron stove lying near a house, "pockmarked with bullets and sputtering as the bullets hit. Ping! Ping! Ping! It sounded as if it were marking the scores in a child's game." Well done.
Pub Date: Sept. 5, 1979
ISBN: 069811552X
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1979
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share.
A multiaward–winning author recalls her childhood and the joy of becoming a writer.
Writing in free verse, Woodson starts with her 1963 birth in Ohio during the civil rights movement, when America is “a country caught / / between Black and White.” But while evoking names such as Malcolm, Martin, James, Rosa and Ruby, her story is also one of family: her father’s people in Ohio and her mother’s people in South Carolina. Moving south to live with her maternal grandmother, she is in a world of sweet peas and collards, getting her hair straightened and avoiding segregated stores with her grandmother. As the writer inside slowly grows, she listens to family stories and fills her days and evenings as a Jehovah’s Witness, activities that continue after a move to Brooklyn to reunite with her mother. The gift of a composition notebook, the experience of reading John Steptoe’s Stevieand Langston Hughes’ poetry, and seeing letters turn into words and words into thoughts all reinforce her conviction that “[W]ords are my brilliance.” Woodson cherishes her memories and shares them with a graceful lyricism; her lovingly wrought vignettes of country and city streets will linger long after the page is turned.
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share. (Memoir/poetry. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-25251-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
An authentic and moving time capsule of middle school angst, trauma, and joy.
Through the author’s own childhood diary entries, a seventh grader details her inner life before and after 9/11.
Alyssa’s diary entries start in September 2000, in the first week of her seventh grade year. She’s 11 and dealing with typical preteen concerns—popularity and anxiety about grades—along with other things more particular to her own life. She’s shuffling between Queens and Manhattan to share time between her divorced parents and struggling with thick facial hair and classmates who make her feel like she’s “not a whole person” due to her mixed White and Puerto Rican heritage. Alyssa is endlessly earnest and awkward as she works up the courage to talk to her crush, Alejandro; gushes about her dreams of becoming a shoe designer; and tries to solve her burgeoning unibrow problem. The diaries also have a darker side, as a sense of impending doom builds as the entries approach 9/11, especially because Alyssa’s father works in finance in the World Trade Center. As a number of the diary entries are taken directly from the author’s originals, they effortlessly capture the loud, confusing feelings middle school brings out. The artwork, in its muted but effective periwinkle tones, lends a satisfying layer to the diary’s accessible and delightful format.
An authentic and moving time capsule of middle school angst, trauma, and joy. (author's note) (Graphic memoir. 8-13)Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-77427-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
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