A Valentine’s Day gift to ambitious youngsters.
A look at the woman who revolutionized Valentine’s Day.
Churnin has covered famous subjects, as in Martin & Anne (2019), and more obscure ones, such as Eliza Davis in Dear Mr. Dickens (2021); here she focuses on one of America’s first professional women. Inspired after her father brought her a valentine from England, Esther Howland (1828-1904) created handmade cards with personalized notes. She had the smarts to brand her cards, develop an assembly line, and build her cottage industry into a successful business—one that gave women the opportunity to work outside the home. When the Civil War started, Howland assumed that few would be interested in her cards, but her business thrived as women sent messages to loved ones on the front lines. Churnin notes that after a fall, Howland used a wheelchair for the rest of her life. On every page, readers will find a roses-are-red-type rhyme inscribed inside a basic heart; some verses are as feeble or stretched as their 19th-century counterparts could be, but they are a unifying conceit. Simplified pastel costumes convey a sense of 19th-century dress; women of color are portrayed sitting alongside white women making cards, and Black soldiers are depicted in Union blue. The printing press illustrated here belongs to a much earlier time. Howland’s business acumen, creative artistry, and persistence are good reasons to celebrate her, though her actual, elaborate cards, some in museum collections, far surpass the plain depictions shown here.
A Valentine’s Day gift to ambitious youngsters. (author’s note; writing encouragement) (Picture-book biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780807567111
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era.
The New Orleans school child who famously broke the color line in 1960 while surrounded by federal marshals describes the early days of her experience from a 6-year-old’s perspective.
Bridges told her tale to younger children in 2009’s Ruby Bridges Goes to School, but here the sensibility is more personal, and the sometimes-shocking historical photos have been replaced by uplifting painted scenes. “I didn’t find out what being ‘the first’ really meant until the day I arrived at this new school,” she writes. Unfrightened by the crowd of “screaming white people” that greets her at the school’s door (she thinks it’s like Mardi Gras) but surprised to find herself the only child in her classroom, and even the entire building, she gradually realizes the significance of her act as (in Smith’s illustration) she compares a small personal photo to the all-White class photos posted on a bulletin board and sees the difference. As she reflects on her new understanding, symbolic scenes first depict other dark-skinned children marching into classes in her wake to friendly greetings from lighter-skinned classmates (“School is just school,” she sensibly concludes, “and kids are just kids”) and finally an image of the bright-eyed icon posed next to a soaring bridge of reconciliation. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era. (author and illustrator notes, glossary) (Autobiographical picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-75388-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
A good-enough introduction to a contested festivity but one that’s not in step with the community it’s for.
An overview of the modern African-American holiday.
This book arrives at a time when black people in the United States have had intraracial—some serious, some snarky—conversations about Kwanzaa’s relevance nowadays, from its patchwork inspiration that flattens the cultural diversity of the African continent to a single festive story to, relatedly, the earnest blacker-than-thou pretentiousness surrounding it. Both the author and consultant Keith A. Mayes take great pains—and in painfully simplistic language—to provide a context that attempts to refute the internal arguments as much as it informs its intended audience. In fact, Mayes says in the endnotes that young people are Kwanzaa’s “largest audience and most important constituents” and further extends an invitation to all races and ages to join the winter celebration. However, his “young people represent the future” counterpoint—and the book itself—really responds to an echo of an argument, as black communities have moved the conversation out to listen to African communities who critique the holiday’s loose “African-ness” and deep American-ness and moved on to commemorate holidays that have a more historical base in black people’s experiences in the United States, such as Juneteenth. In this context, the explications of Kwanzaa’s principles and symbols and the smattering of accompanying activities feel out of touch.
A good-enough introduction to a contested festivity but one that’s not in step with the community it’s for. (resources, bibliography, glossary, afterword) (Nonfiction. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4263-2849-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: National Geographic Kids
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2017
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