Introduces a bold female risk taker who deserves much wider recognition.
The daring exploits of a bike-riding trailblazer.
Two Boston businessmen made a bet: No woman could cycle around the world. Annie Cohen Kopchovsky, a Latvian Jewish immigrant and married mother of three, accepted. Talk about nervy: Antisemitism was rife, and Annie had never ridden a bike. She received just two brief lessons before she set out on June 25, 1894. Before leaving, she accepted $100 from the Londonderry Lithia Spring Water Company and attached their advertising to her bike, thus (temporarily) becoming “Annie Londonderry, Daring Lady Bicyclist.” Following initial struggles, a New York bicycle company donated a lighter-weight bike, and Annie traded her skirt for bloomers. After sailing to France and cycling across the country, Annie sailed to Egypt. On her trip, she also traveled by train and ship and pedaled through Russia, India, Vietnam, and more. A steamship from Japan brought Annie to San Francisco, from whence she returned to Boston, arriving on schedule. She was greeted enthusiastically everywhere, signing photos and regaling audiences with exciting, probably heavily embellished lectures. What was genuine: Annie pedaled a tremendous distance—and changed perceptions about women’s accomplishments. Children will embrace this fast-paced tale about an indomitable adventurer. The colorful illustrations, some featuring international landmarks, capture Annie’s determination and present period details well.
Introduces a bold female risk taker who deserves much wider recognition. (newspaper excerpts, author’s note, map) (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781250837127
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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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