Angelou’s poem considers peace as a joyous concept that rises up during the Christmas season, drawing in and including those of all faiths, sweeping everyone along with its power. This visual interpretation of the poem follows the residents of a small town as they trek through deep snow to gather at their town hall for a holiday celebration. Although there are lighted Christmas trees throughout the town, this particular celebration is a nondenominational community dinner and candle-lighting, with people of many faiths and backgrounds joining together in peaceful solidarity. Johnson and Fancher’s understated, mixed-media illustrations use fabric scraps for plaid and checked coats on the townspeople, with darker fabrics for buildings and thick brushstrokes of white paint over cloth for the snow. Although doubtlessly well-intended, the author’s invitation to Buddhists, Confucians, Jains, Jews and Muslims—not to mention “Nonbelievers”—to join in the celebration of “the Birth of Jesus Christ / Into the great religions of the world” is at best tone-deaf and at worst frankly assimilationist. (Picture book/poetry. 6 & up)
Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-375-84150-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
Compelling and atmospheric.
Twelve-year-old Mexican American Lula longs to speak out and stand up against oppression in 1960s Delano, California.
Lula lives with her migrant farmworker family in bedbug-infested barracks. Her older sister, Concha, loves school just like Lula does; big brother Rafa works the fields with Mamá and Papá while youngest siblings Gabi and Martín tag along. Papá drinks, has an unpredictable temper, and only shows love to the littlest ones. Lula dreams of being able to make Papá smile. When Mamá becomes gravely ill, she’s turned away from the emergency room due to lack of money. A local curandera thinks she’s been poisoned by pesticides used in the fields and treats her with herbs. At school, Lula befriends Leonor, a Filipina and Mexican American girl, and is inspired by her powerful voice and grit. Leonor’s family is involved with the Filipino strikers’ union, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee. The AWOC are recruiting the Mexican National Farm Worker’s Association, led by Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chávez, to join them in striking for better wages and conditions. This introspective novel with a well-developed sense of place features free verse in varied layouts that maintain visual interest. The character development is strong; as Papá is influenced by Chávez, who speaks of nonviolence, his behaviors change. Lula shows tenacity as her seeds of potential are nourished.
Compelling and atmospheric. (author’s note, further reading) (Verse historical fiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-40660-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
Brooks’s gloriously universal celebration of African-American childhood here receives a respectful and joyous treatment from one of the pre-eminent illustrators of the same. Readers coming to “Narcissa,” “Beulah at Church” and “Marie Lucille” for the first time will discover them accompanied by Ringgold’s trademark folk-art interpretations, the expressive brown figures depicted for the most part as vignettes against bright backgrounds. They show a Bronzeville that bustles with activity, single-family homes sharing the streets with apartment buildings and the occasional vacant lot. The children run, braids and arms out straight, and contemplate in turns, their exuberance tempered by the solemnity of childhood. While it’s regrettable that occasionally the specificity of the illustration robs a verse of its universality—the “special place” referenced in “Keziah” is shown to be underneath the kitchen table, for instance—the overall ebullience of the images more than compensates. There is a drop of truth in every single playful, piercing stanza, and anything that brings these poems to a new audience is to be cheered; a lovely package indeed. (Picture book/poetry. 7+)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-06-029505-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2006
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