Readers will want to pore over this thoroughly engaging volume.
From poor, blond boy to the King of Rock ’n’ Roll, Elvis Presley lived the classic rags-to-riches storybook life.
According to Winter’s heightened, poetic narrative, “singing is the reason / Elvis was brought into this world” and became the means by which he transcended his impoverished beginnings. He grew up singing in church, at the county fair, in the classroom with the guitar his mama had bought him, and, after the family moved to Memphis, in the high school talent show. Dyeing his hair black and donning colorful outfits from secondhand stores, Elvis developed a “LOOK AT ME” persona and dreamed of becoming “the biggest star in the world.” Stylized, information-packed narration broken into single-page “chapters” provides the platform for Red Nose Studio’s (aka Chris Sickels) eye-grabbing art. Information included inside the book jacket shows how he builds small, theaterlike sets from cardboard, wire, fabric, and found objects and characters’ heads out of polymer clay, then photographs them from various perspectives—from feet under a table in a diner to Elvis and his girlfriend sitting on a neon sign above the city. Illustrations reflect Elvis’ segregated South, the white boy’s African-American influences confined to one image of a black church and another of bluesmen on Beale Street. This story is all about his rise; the decline and ignominious end are omitted, even in the author’s note.
Readers will want to pore over this thoroughly engaging volume. (Picture book/biography. 5-10)Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-55470-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Sept. 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2018
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Bridges Goes to School, but here the sensibility is more personal, and the sometimes-shocking historical photos have been replaced by uplifting painted scenes.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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