The tiny (less than five feet tall) sharpshooter known as Annie Oakley began life as Phoebe Ann Mozee on an Ohio farm. At age eight, Annie, one of seven children, broke her nose from the kickback of the rifle she used to kill a cottontail rabbit to feed her family. After her father and one of her sisters died, Annie boarded with a couple to help care for their baby, but for two years they kept her a virtual prisoner and didn’t even let her write to her mother. She escaped, began supporting her family by supplying game to fancy hotels through a local grocery store, and at age 20 won the clay-pigeon shooting match against Frank Butler celebrated in song and story. Krensky follows Annie’s career through her marriage to Butler, her work in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, and her tours throughout the US and Europe. The quotes are apparently taken from Annie’s own diaries (credited in the acknowledgments) and have a richly authentic flavor. The deep-toned, soft-focus paintings make good use of gold and sepia; one of Annie’s most famous tricks, involving shooting glass balls, is brilliantly evoked in shadows, a puff of rifle smoke, and exploding glass shards. A terrific introduction to a historical character who was the heroine of her own fabulous tale. (author’s note) (Picture book/biography. 7-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2001
ISBN: 0-374-36843-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Melanie Kroupa/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2001
Spinning lively invented details around skimpy historical records, Taylor profiles the 19th-century chef credited with inventing the potato chip. Crum, thought to be of mixed Native-American and African-American ancestry, was a lover of the outdoors, who turned cooking skills learned from a French hunter into a kitchen job at an upscale resort in New York state. As the story goes, he fried up the first batch of chips in a fit of pique after a diner complained that his French fries were cut too thickly. Morrison’s schoolroom, kitchen and restaurant scenes seem a little more integrated than would have been likely in the 1850s, but his sinuous figures slide through them with exaggerated elegance, adding a theatrical energy as delicious as the snack food they celebrate. The author leaves Crum presiding over a restaurant (also integrated) of his own, closes with a note separating fact from fiction and also lists her sources. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-58430-255-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
An emotional entry point to a larger, necessary discussion on this complex and difficult subject.
The paths of four migrant children from different Central American countries cross as they enter Mexico, and together they continue their journey to the United States.
Though their reasons for undertaking the perilous journey are different, their hopes are not: They all hope for asylum in the U.S. Ten-year-old Alessandra, from Guatemala, hopes to reunite with her mother, who left four years ago. Thirteen-year-old Laura and her 7-year-old brother, Nando, from El Salvador, are going to live with relatives in the U.S. And 14-year-old Rodrigo, from Honduras, will try to join his parents in Nebraska rather than join a local gang. Along the way they encounter danger, hunger, kindness from strangers, and, most importantly, the strength of friendship with one another. Through the four children, the book provides but the barest glimpse into the reasons, hopes, and dreams of the thousands of unaccompanied minors that arrive at the U.S.–Mexico border every year. Artist Guevara has added Central American folk art–influenced details to her illustrations, giving depth to the artwork. These embellishments appear as line drawings superimposed on the watercolor scenes. The backmatter explains the reasons for the book, helping to place it within the larger context of ongoing projects at Baylor University related to the migration crisis in Central America.
An emotional entry point to a larger, necessary discussion on this complex and difficult subject. (Picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64442-008-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Six Foot Press
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
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