Definitely on a mission, but some sense of the woman beneath the robes comes through.
An analytical view of the personal and cultural values that make the Supreme Court’s first Hispanic and third woman justice an admirable role model.
Emphasizing Sotomayor’s affinity to minority readers in particular, Mendoza highlights the influences of Nuyorican community spirit (“the wonderful optimism of being bicultural”) and “Island Girl Values” along with the personal discipline required to live with childhood diabetes in forming her subject’s character. Sotomayor’s youth and career acquire a shine of legend as she goes from early ambitions to be the “Latina Perry Mason” (a phrase the author loves enough to use repeatedly) through law school and up the ladder of responsibility. Her attainment of the stratospheric bench where “she was meant to be all along,” leading the “Rock Star Life” of a Supreme Court justice, is presented as destiny. Wowza. The prose, though rough-hewn (“The value of education was always engrained in her brain”), is at least less mannered than the free verse of Carmen T. Bernier-Grand’s eponymous profile, illustrated by Thomas Gonzalez (2010), and the biographical details end with a note on a 2015 award.
Definitely on a mission, but some sense of the woman beneath the robes comes through. (notes, bibliography) (Biography. 12-14)Pub Date: April 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-942186-09-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Zest Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
The life of Manjiro Nakahama, also known as John Mung, makes an amazing story: shipwrecked as a young fisherman for months on a remote island, rescued by an American whaler, he became the first Japanese resident of the US. Then, after further adventures at sea and in the California gold fields, he returned to Japan where his first-hand knowledge of America and its people earned him a central role in the modernization of his country after its centuries of peaceful isolation had ended. Expanding a passage from her Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun (1985, Newbery Honor), Blumberg not only delivers an absorbing tale of severe hardships and startling accomplishments, but also takes side excursions to give readers vivid pictures of life in mid-19th-century Japan, aboard a whaler, and amidst the California Gold Rush. The illustrations, a generous mix of contemporary photos and prints with Manjiro’s own simple, expressive drawings interspersed, are at least as revealing. Seeing a photo of Commodore Perry side by side with a Japanese artist’s painted portrait, or strange renditions of a New England town and a steam train, based solely on Manjiro’s verbal descriptions, not only captures the unique flavor of Japanese art, but points up just how high were the self-imposed barriers that separated Japan from the rest of the world. Once again, Blumberg shows her ability to combine high adventure with vivid historical detail to open a window onto the past. (source note) (Biography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2001
ISBN: 0-688-17484-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Born in 1880 in a tiny backwater in Alabama, Helen Keller lived a life familiar to many from the play and movie The Miracle Worker, as well as countless biographies. There’s no denying the drama in the story of the deaf and blind child for whom the world of language became possible through a dedicated and fanatically stubborn teacher, Annie Sullivan. But Helen’s life after that is even more remarkable: she went to high school and then to Radcliffe; she was a radical political thinker and a member of the Wobblies; she supported herself by lecture tours and vaudeville excursions as well as through the kindness of many. Dash (The Longitude Prize, p. 1483) does a clear-sighted and absorbing job of examining Annie’s prickly personality and the tender family that she, Helen, and Annie’s husband John Macy formed. She touches on the family pressures that conspired to keep Helen from her own pursuit of love and marriage; she makes vivid not only Helen’s brilliant and vibrant intelligence and personality, but the support of many people who loved her, cared for her, and served her. She also does not shrink from the describing the social and class divisions that kept some from crediting Annie Sullivan and others intent on making Helen into a puppet and no more. Riveting reading for students in need of inspiration, or who’re overcoming disability or studying changing expectations for women. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-590-90715-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
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