A unique and valuable perspective.
On an interfaith, family-based road trip, a young Black girl visits important landmarks of the civil rights movement.
Liberty is looking forward to seeing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, but there are many stops before Selma. During the hours on the bus, Liberty plays with her friend Abdullah. The first stop is in Jackson, Mississippi, at the home of voting rights activist Medgar Evers. In Glendora, Mississippi, the group stops to remember Emmett Till. The next day, the group quietly remembers Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the site of his assassination at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. Finally, after stops at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham and Dr. King’s Montgomery home, the group reaches the bridge in Selma, Alabama, where they march and remember those who marched from Selma to Montgomery decades ago. Based on a true story of road trips organized by the author and attended by faith leaders and their families, this story highlights the relationship that links present generations and past. Though the dialogue between the children and adults feels a bit contrived, the focus on Liberty’s perspective during the tour of discovery allows readers to imagine the courage and sacrifice of those who came before. Each site introduction is necessarily brief and somewhat superficial; endnotes offer more details. Tadgell’s delicate illustrations capture warm relationships and diverse identities and personalities, juxtaposing light color in the present with black-and-white images of the past.
A unique and valuable perspective. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-947888-19-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flyaway Books
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales.
The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965) upgrades to The Mice and the Rolls-Royce.
In Windsor Castle there sits a “dollhouse like no other,” replete with working plumbing, electricity, and even a full library of real, tiny books. Called Queen Mary’s Dollhouse, it also plays host to the Whiskers family, a clan of mice that has maintained the house for generations. Henry Whiskers and his cousin Jeremy get up to the usual high jinks young mice get up to, but when Henry’s little sister Isabel goes missing at the same time that the humans decide to clean the house up, the usually bookish big brother goes on the adventure of his life. Now Henry is driving cars, avoiding cats, escaping rats, and all before the upcoming mouse Masquerade. Like an extended version of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904), Priebe keeps this short chapter book constantly moving, with Duncan’s peppy art a cute capper. Oddly, the dollhouse itself plays only the smallest of roles in this story, and no factual information on the real Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House is included at the tale’s end (an opportunity lost).
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales. (Fantasy. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6575-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
A stunning, honest, yet age-appropriate depiction of historical injustice.
Giddens’ song commemorating the 155th anniversary of Juneteenth is adapted into a picture book centering history and resilience.
Written in second person, the story begins “You brought me here / to build your house” and depicts a Black family joining enslaved Black laborers in a field, transported and supervised by a White person. The family helps the others lay bricks and pick cotton until they are sent away, with the White person gesturing for them to leave (“you told me… // GO”). Against a backdrop of green fields and blue mountains, the family finds “a place / To build my house,” enjoying freedom, until “you said I couldn’t / Build a house / And so you burnt it…// DOWN.” Beside the ashes, the family writes a song; images depict instruments and musical notes being pulled from the family; and another illustration shows White people dancing and playing. The family travels “far and wide” and finds a new place where they can write a song and “put my story down.” Instruments in hand, the family establishes itself once again in the land. This deeply moving portrait of the push and pull of history is made concrete through Mikai’s art, which features bright green landscapes, expressive faces, and ultimately hopeful compositions. Giddens’ powerful, spare poetry, spanning centuries of American history, is breathtaking. Readers who discover her music through this book and the online recording (included as a QR code) will be forever glad they picked up this book. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A stunning, honest, yet age-appropriate depiction of historical injustice. (afterword) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5362-2252-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
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