An effervescent celebration.
Drummer Chick Webb may not have been big, but he was a force to be reckoned with.
Born in East Baltimore somewhere around the turn of the 20th century, little William Webb suffered from spinal tuberculosis, a condition that was exacerbated when he experienced a fall. After an operation, his doctor recommended the family get him a drum set as a means of physical therapy. As that was financially out of reach, William used spoons and pots and pans, eventually buying himself a set of drumsticks and then a full drum kit from his newsboy income. He walked with a hunch and never grew taller than 4-foot-1, but that didn’t stop him from drumming. Punctuating her account with ample onomatopoeia (“Dig-a-dig-a-dig-a-dig-a!”), Donohue describes how he recruited “only the best musicians for his band,” including Ella Fitzgerald as lead singer. He presided over the Savoy Ballroom, which permitted both Black and White dancers and where he and his band played Benny Goodman’s to its knees. Her focus is on the African American musician’s extraordinary talent and his physical challenges, but she does touch on the discrimination of the times. His tragically early death just two years after the showdown with Goodman is revealed in an author’s note. Freeman’s illustrations are full of movement, musical staves and notes swirling across the spreads in visual accentuation of Webb’s swing beat. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 58% of actual size.)
An effervescent celebration. (Picture book/biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5341-1097-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
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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