Exudes inspiration and dedication.
A science teacher trains kids who are playing in irrigation ditches how to swim, eventually leading them to the Olympics.
In the 1930s, on the Hawaiian island of Maui, migrant workers cut sugar cane, leaving their kids to their own devices. In the hot sun, the kids swim and dive in the irrigation ditches that run through the fields, but the police yell at them and chase them out. When science teacher Soichi Sakamoto sees this, he decides to help the kids. He convinces the authorities to let the kids use the ditch, which he trains them to treat like a swimming lane. Sakamoto creates a daily program for them to follow, making his students swim upstream to make them stronger. Over time a pool is built, and the Three-Year-Swim Club is established with dreams of the Olympics. But war interrupts their dreams until they finally get their chance in the 1948 Olympics. Told in clipped, rhyming verse, this is a quick, simplified account of a lesser-known inspirational story in sports history. Sakamoto and the swimmers’ journey to the Olympics exemplifies perseverance and determination. It is an excellent read-aloud, with additional information for adults to give context in the form of an author’s note that provides the story again in prose, with more details and additional facts. The illustrations are full of bright colors, befitting the beautiful landscape; both kids and Sakamoto are depicted with brown skin and black hair. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Exudes inspiration and dedication. (sources) (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0031-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
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
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
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