Born in 1880 in a tiny backwater in Alabama, Helen Keller lived a life familiar to many from the play and movie The Miracle Worker, as well as countless biographies. There’s no denying the drama in the story of the deaf and blind child for whom the world of language became possible through a dedicated and fanatically stubborn teacher, Annie Sullivan. But Helen’s life after that is even more remarkable: she went to high school and then to Radcliffe; she was a radical political thinker and a member of the Wobblies; she supported herself by lecture tours and vaudeville excursions as well as through the kindness of many. Dash (The Longitude Prize, p. 1483) does a clear-sighted and absorbing job of examining Annie’s prickly personality and the tender family that she, Helen, and Annie’s husband John Macy formed. She touches on the family pressures that conspired to keep Helen from her own pursuit of love and marriage; she makes vivid not only Helen’s brilliant and vibrant intelligence and personality, but the support of many people who loved her, cared for her, and served her. She also does not shrink from the describing the social and class divisions that kept some from crediting Annie Sullivan and others intent on making Helen into a puppet and no more. Riveting reading for students in need of inspiration, or who’re overcoming disability or studying changing expectations for women. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-590-90715-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
The life of Manjiro Nakahama, also known as John Mung, makes an amazing story: shipwrecked as a young fisherman for months on a remote island, rescued by an American whaler, he became the first Japanese resident of the US. Then, after further adventures at sea and in the California gold fields, he returned to Japan where his first-hand knowledge of America and its people earned him a central role in the modernization of his country after its centuries of peaceful isolation had ended. Expanding a passage from her Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun (1985, Newbery Honor), Blumberg not only delivers an absorbing tale of severe hardships and startling accomplishments, but also takes side excursions to give readers vivid pictures of life in mid-19th-century Japan, aboard a whaler, and amidst the California Gold Rush. The illustrations, a generous mix of contemporary photos and prints with Manjiro’s own simple, expressive drawings interspersed, are at least as revealing. Seeing a photo of Commodore Perry side by side with a Japanese artist’s painted portrait, or strange renditions of a New England town and a steam train, based solely on Manjiro’s verbal descriptions, not only captures the unique flavor of Japanese art, but points up just how high were the self-imposed barriers that separated Japan from the rest of the world. Once again, Blumberg shows her ability to combine high adventure with vivid historical detail to open a window onto the past. (source note) (Biography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2001
ISBN: 0-688-17484-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
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A title worth moving to the head of the line.
An artist grappled with boundaries.
Growing up in California, Ruth Aiko Asawa (1926-2013) was keenly aware of an “invisible line” separating her life at home, where she was called Aiko, from school, where she was known as Ruth—though “she could cross back and forth or even straddle it if she had to.” This beautifully wrought metaphor for a bicultural Japanese American experience is echoed throughout the book: in the lines a young Asawa drew in the dirt at her family farm and the way she lined up for the Pledge of Allegiance at school. The most important lines, however, were those she made as an artist, especially when creativity sustained her while she and other Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II. She studied to become an art teacher, but “because she looked like the enemy, her college wouldn’t place her at a school.” She persevered and, after the war, found her way to Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Drawing inspiration from Mexican wire baskets and memories of barbed wire at the camps, Asawa was driven by the conviction that “art is for everyone.” Infused with emotion, the unflinchingly honest text and exquisite mixed-media art, which layers dazzling pops of blue onto muted backdrops, detail the oppression Asawa faced—and her resilience. An informative author’s note provides additional context for this story of an innovative artist whose legacy of democratizing the arts is utterly inspirational.
A title worth moving to the head of the line. (photograph, bibliography) (Picture-book biography. 7-11)Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2025
ISBN: 9781250310378
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
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