A refreshingly original approach to exploring the lives of famous women.
“Girls who read have become women who lead.”
From Cleopatra to Marley Dias, these entries, organized by birthdate, focus on a wide variety of women who stood out because they were empowered by a love of reading. The accounts emphasize the subjects’ childhood reading and learning. Scholar, feminist, and nun Juana Inez de la Cruz snuck out of her house to go to school with her older sister, while Indira Gandhi, India’s first female prime minister, discussed books in regular letters with her father, Jawaharlal Nehru. Scientist Temple Grandin, who has pioneered humane methods of animal slaughter, loved Black Beauty and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Each three-to-four-page biography begins with the subject’s name, dates, and a short quotation and features a cheery digital illustration of the subject as an adult. Smooth, engaging text illuminates these women’s achievements as adults. A final profile is devoted to co-author Krull, who died in 2021, leaving several unfinished manuscripts, including this one, which was completed by longtime friend Loh-Hagan. The work concludes with thorough backmatter, including feminist fun facts about the subjects, information on other women who didn’t make the cut, suggested activities to encourage kids to “spread the joy of reading along,” and extensive references organized by subject.
A refreshingly original approach to exploring the lives of famous women. (resources, index) (Collective biography. 10-15)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781665917988
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
A beautiful, powerful reflection on a tragic history.
In spare verse, Lowry reflects on moments in her childhood, including the bombings of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima.
When she was a child, Lowry played at Waikiki Beach with her grandmother while her father filmed. In the old home movie, the USS Arizona appears through the mist on the horizon. Looking back at her childhood in Hawaii and then Japan, Lowry reflects on the bombings that began and ended a war and how they affected and connected everyone involved. In Part 1, she shares the lives and actions of sailors at Pearl Harbor. Part 2 is stories of civilians in Hiroshima affected by the bombing. Part 3 presents her own experience as an American in Japan shortly after the war ended. The poems bring the haunting human scale of war to the forefront, like the Christmas cards a sailor sent days before he died or the 4-year-old who was buried with his red tricycle after Hiroshima. All the personal stories—of sailors, civilians, and Lowry herself—are grounding. There is heartbreak and hope, reminding readers to reflect on the past to create a more peaceful future. Lowry uses a variety of poetry styles, identifying some, such as triolet and haiku. Pak’s graphite illustrations are like still shots of history, adding to the emotion and somber feeling. He includes some sailors of color among the mostly white U.S. forces; Lowry is white.
A beautiful, powerful reflection on a tragic history. (author’s note, bibliography) (Memoir/poetry. 10-14)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-358-12940-0
Page Count: 80
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
PROFILES
Chatty, formulaic, superficial—and dispensable, as the content is neither reliable nor systematic. .
Sprouting bodies and grins, the states introduce themselves alphabetically in this Basher History gallery.
Following the series’ cast-in-stone design, each entry poses in a cartoon portrait with small emblems representing prominent physical features, industry, number of native U.S. presidents and other select distinctions. On opposite pages, a hearty self-description dominates: “Aloha! Come and hang ten with me, dude. I’m a bunch of chilled-out islands in the Pacific, but I have a fiery heart.” This is sandwiched between bulleted lists of superficial facts, from state bird, flower and nickname to (for Arkansas) “Known for diverse landscape, extreme weather, and Walmart.” U.S. territories bring up the rear, followed by a table of official state mottos and, glued to the rear cover, a foldout map. Along with out-and-out errors (a mistranslation of “e pluribus unum”) and unqualified claims (Boston built the first subway), Green offers confusing or opaque views on the origins of “Hawkeye,” “Sooners,” some state names and which of two “Mississippi Deltas” was the birthplace of the blues. Furthermore, a reference to “sacred hunting grounds” in West Virginia and Kentucky’s claim that “It wasn’t until pioneer Daniel Boone breached the Cumberland Gap…that my verdant pastures were colonized” are, at best, ingenuous.
Chatty, formulaic, superficial—and dispensable, as the content is neither reliable nor systematic. . (index, glossary) (Nonfiction. 10-12)Pub Date: July 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7534-7138-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Kingfisher
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
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