Stone delivers a winner.
The surprisingly complex history of one of America’s favorite board games.
In the early 1900s, Lizzie Magie created and patented the Landlord’s Game in order to demonstrate the frequent injustices of the landlord-tenant relationship—it even had socialist alternative rules. As people began to play the game, it was adapted by players, including a business professor who called the game Monopoly. During the Great Depression, a down-on-his-luck businessman named Charles Darrow decided to handcraft and sell Monopoly boards, adding many of the design features we know today. As the success of Darrow’s version of Monopoly grew, Parker Brothers took interest—only to discover that they couldn’t patent it, as Lizzie Magie already had! When Parker Brothers finally gained rights to the game in 1935, Magie received relatively little compensation while Darrow made a small fortune. Stone presents the board game’s messy history with ease, providing a clear, linear path to today’s Monopoly without ever compromising the nuances of its invention. Direct-address narration engages children, leaving room for them to draw their own conclusions: “So who wins in this story? What do you think?” Salerno’s soft, dynamic full-bleed illustrations reflect yet move beyond the aesthetics of the game and time period, making every page compelling and fresh. All illustrated people, including named figures and background characters, appear white. Backmatter includes trivia, Monopoly-related math problems, an author’s note, and a bibliography.
Stone delivers a winner. (Informational picture book. 5-10)Pub Date: July 17, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-62779-168-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A larger-than-life subject is neatly captured in text and images.
The life journey of the first African American to serve on the United States Supreme Court and the incidents that formed him.
Thurgood Marshall grew up in segregated Baltimore, Maryland, with a family that encouraged him to stand for justice. Despite attending poor schools, he found a way to succeed. His father instilled in him a love of the law and encouraged him to argue like a lawyer during dinner conversations. His success in college meant he could go to law school, but the University of Maryland did not accept African American students. Instead, Marshall went to historically black Howard University, where he was mentored by civil rights lawyer Charles Houston. Marshall’s first major legal case was against the law school that denied him a place, and his success brought him to the attention of the NAACP and ultimately led to his work on the groundbreaking Brown v. Board of Education, which itself led to his appointment to the Supreme Court. This lively narrative serves as an introduction to the life of one of the country’s important civil rights figures. Important facts in Marshall’s life are effectively highlighted in an almost staccato fashion. The bold watercolor-and-collage illustrations, beginning with an enticing cover, capture and enhance the strong tone set by the words.
A larger-than-life subject is neatly captured in text and images. (author’s note, photos) (Picture book/biography. 5-9)Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5247-6533-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
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