A splendid introduction to a lesser-known nature poet and the landscapes that inspired her.
Celia Laighton Thaxter loved the beauty of birds, flowers, and the ever changing sea.
Born in 1835, she grew up on two islands off the shores of Maine and New Hampshire. As a young child, she planted marigolds to brighten the gray and white landscape of rocks, waves, and clouds on White Island, where her father was the lightkeeper. When Celia was 12 years old, her family moved to Appledore Island, where her father opened a hotel that catered to artists and writers. There, Celia planted a new, bigger garden with flowers of many varieties. Married life brought her to the mainland, where she and her husband raised their family. Homesick, Celia painted pictures and wrote poems that captured her memories of island life, becoming a well-known, celebrated poet in her time. Every spring, year after year, she returned to Appledore Island to tend to her glorious garden. Using third-person narration, Root and Schmidt describe Celia’s seasonal activities with great admiration, carefully naming the flower and bird species to which she felt so deeply connected. Sweet’s lush, detailed watercolor, gouache, and mixed-media illustrations greatly enhance the text. Readers will be delighted to realize that the stylized handwritten words appearing in sidebars are Celia’s own lovely, heartfelt poems. All characters present White. Additional fascinating information about Laighton Thaxter is provided in the backmatter. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A splendid introduction to a lesser-known nature poet and the landscapes that inspired her. (additional facts, timeline, bibliography) (Picture-book biography. 5-9)Pub Date: May 17, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0429-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
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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