Provocative, powerful, breathtakingly beautiful.
Responding to the Russia-Ukraine war, Ukrainian artist Shatokhin’s wordless narrative offers a child’s-eye view of military conflict.
The story opens in black and white with a close-up that may be hard to identify at first: a single barbed-wire knot. Things clear up as the view pans to an outline of a child behind the fence, two knots hiding their eyes. The fence transforms into a menacing spider, and the child runs, trips, and falls. When they peer through their fingers, a single yellow butterfly has appeared. There is much for readers to interpret through conversations and multiple readings in these artfully designed pages, some with insets that focus attention, others with objects on facing pages that invite comparison, e.g., a missile and a tree jutting from the ground at similar angles. Several yellow butterflies flit above a bombed-out hole, and the child envisions a playground (past or future?) with happy friends; these images are formed with a minimum of lines against the white background. Shatokhin employs color, scale, perspective, and pattern to great effect in timely—and timeless—scenes that capture the protagonist’s fear, fury, frustration, and, ultimately, hope. Exquisite compositions depict a yellow swarm of butterflies becoming the child’s wings, lifting them to see a blue sky amid the destruction (yellow and blue being the colors of the Ukrainian flag). Useful backmatter includes information on sharing wordless books and discussing war with children. The child and other people portrayed are the white of the page. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Provocative, powerful, breathtakingly beautiful. (Picture book. 5-12)Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-63655-064-0
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Red Comet Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
Fast-paced and plot-driven.
In his latest, prolific author Gratz takes on Hitler’s Olympic Games.
When 13-year-old American gymnast Evie Harris arrives in Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games, she has one goal: stardom. If she can bring home a gold medal like her friend, the famous equestrian-turned-Hollywood-star Mary Brooks, she might be able to lift her family out of their Dust Bowl poverty. But someone slips a strange note under Evie’s door, and soon she’s dodging Heinz Fischer, the Hitler Youth member assigned to host her, and meeting strangers who want to make use of her gymnastic skills—to rob a bank. As the games progress, Evie begins to see the moral issues behind their sparkling facade—the antisemitism and racism inherent in Nazi ideology and the way Hitler is using the competition to support and promote these beliefs. And she also agrees to rob the bank. Gratz goes big on the Mission Impossible–style heist, which takes center stage over the actual competitions, other than Jesse Owens’ famous long jump. A lengthy and detailed author’s note provides valuable historical context, including places where Gratz adapted the facts for storytelling purposes (although there’s no mention of the fact that before 1952, Olympic equestrian sports were limited to male military officers). With an emphasis on the plot, many of the characters feel defined primarily by how they’re suffering under the Nazis, such as the fictional diver Ursula Diop, who was involuntarily sterilized for being biracial.
Fast-paced and plot-driven. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781338736106
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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