Both a tribute to Hamilton’s genius and an invitation to those yet to come.
Poems and pictures trace Virginia Hamilton’s family history, childhood, and growth into a writer.
Virginia Hamilton was a MacArthur “Genius” and the first Black author to win the Newbery Medal. Crews wisely avoids introducing her subject as a great writer to picture-book readers unlikely to know her books already, instead focusing on the circumstances that helped to make her one. Hamilton’s ancestors fled slavery for the Ohio countryside, where the family flourished. Her parents nourished their youngest daughter’s imagination, captured in two tender poems. In the first, young Hamilton’s mother transforms a frightening storm into a dance between a tree she dubs Grandmother Lilac and the wind; in the other, her father plays mandolin and tells stories about great Black Americans. Cuddled in between, a poem entitled “Free”—set against a double-page illustration of Hamilton’s bare feet striding confidently through green grass—tells readers “Virginia was free. / To be a dreamer. / To be a wanderer. / To be her own unique self. / Free to be.” When a 9-year-old Hamilton decided to become a writer, “Nobody laughed or said, / ‘You can’t do that.’ ” In poem after poem—all in delicate, unrhymed verse—Crews carefully gives budding writers a role model. The digital illustrations have the look of cut-paper collage, excelling when offering visual metaphors but less effective when depicting narrative.
Both a tribute to Hamilton’s genius and an invitation to those yet to come. (author’s note, timeline, bibliographies) (Picture-book poetry/biography. 5-9)Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2024
ISBN: 9780316383592
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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Bridges Goes to School, but here the sensibility is more personal, and the sometimes-shocking historical photos have been replaced by uplifting painted scenes.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
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
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