This inspirational story fails to inspire.
Shy 5-year-old Leticia wants to be on TV, but no one on the screen looks like her.
Having come from Mexico, her parents know the value of education to achieve success, and they encourage their daughter to work hard in school to overcome her shyness and to go to college in order to pursue her goal of becoming a news anchor. After earning an internship at a Sacramento news outfit, Leticia knows that newscasting is her dream job. She endures years of writing her own scripts and shooting her own stories until the day she’s been waiting for finally arrives: Channel 3 Sacramento hires her as a news reporter. She did it! Unfortunately, Ordaz’s uninspired text results in a dispassionate catalog of her achievements, from convincing her father to get another job so she could be fitted with orthodontic braces to landing the coveted anchor position during her pregnancy. There is little emotional engagement. The dearth of examples of personal growth and the surmounting of obstacles—such as learning English as a child and achieving success in a predominantly White industry on her own merits—means there is little tension in the story. Colombian artist Calle’s illustrations, cartoonish with exaggerated eyes, only serve to widen the emotional distance between subject and readers. The absence of autobiographical backmatter further lessens the value of this latest addition to the documentation of the achievements of people of color in the U.S.
This inspirational story fails to inspire. (glossary) (Picture book/memoir. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-59702-151-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Immedium
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
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 picture book more than worthy of sharing the shelf with Alan Schroeder and Jerry Pinkney’s Minty (1996) and Carole Boston...
A memorable, lyrical reverse-chronological walk through the life of an American icon.
In free verse, Cline-Ransome narrates the life of Harriet Tubman, starting and ending with a train ride Tubman takes as an old woman. “But before wrinkles formed / and her eyes failed,” Tubman could walk tirelessly under a starlit sky. Cline-Ransome then describes the array of roles Tubman played throughout her life, including suffragist, abolitionist, Union spy, and conductor on the Underground Railroad. By framing the story around a literal train ride, the Ransomes juxtapose the privilege of traveling by rail against Harriet’s earlier modes of travel, when she repeatedly ran for her life. Racism still abounds, however, for she rides in a segregated train. While the text introduces readers to the details of Tubman’s life, Ransome’s use of watercolor—such a striking departure from his oil illustrations in many of his other picture books—reveals Tubman’s humanity, determination, drive, and hope. Ransome’s lavishly detailed and expansive double-page spreads situate young readers in each time and place as the text takes them further into the past.
A picture book more than worthy of sharing the shelf with Alan Schroeder and Jerry Pinkney’s Minty (1996) and Carole Boston Weatherford and Kadir Nelson’s Moses (2006). (Picture book/biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2047-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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