Quietly potent and intensely empathetic.
In his final, posthumously published work, the late Caldecott Medalist tells the true story of his uncle’s travails in World War II–era Europe.
Several years before war broke out, 15-year-old Yehiel Szulewicz left his strict, devoutly Jewish home in Poland in search of adventure. Blown like a tumbleweed through much of Europe, often barely half a step ahead of Nazis and Blackshirts, he survived by relying on quick thinking, the kindness of strangers, and sheer luck. He trained as a leathersmith, took part in the Spanish Civil War against Franco, joined the Jewish resistance in France, changed his name to Henri Sulewic, and married a woman named Ida Winograd. Though he never reunited with his family, he learned of their tragic fates and spent his later years painting pictures of the obliterated Jewish community of his childhood. The matter-of-fact voice of the narrative, told from Yehiel’s first-person perspective, contrasts sharply with the underlying horrors shaping his life; his accounts of his family’s murders and the brutality of battles are related in much the same tone as descriptions of buying a secondhand pair of shoes, with the banal and the terrible often just a few sentences apart. That juxtaposition embodies the true power of the story, making the subject matter a bit easier to stomach yet all the more heartrending. Shulevitz’s ominous black-and-white sketches are interspersed throughout.
Quietly potent and intensely empathetic. (afterword, photos, reproductions of Sulewic’s paintings) (Nonfiction. 10-18)Pub Date: Aug. 19, 2025
ISBN: 9780374392468
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats.
Why should grown-ups get all the historical, scientific, athletic, cinematic, and artistic glory?
Choosing exemplars from both past and present, Mitchell includes but goes well beyond Alexander the Great, Anne Frank, and like usual suspects to introduce a host of lesser-known luminaries. These include Shapur II, who was formally crowned king of Persia before he was born, Indian dancer/professional architect Sheila Sri Prakash, transgender spokesperson Jazz Jennings, inventor Param Jaggi, and an international host of other teen or preteen activists and prodigies. The individual portraits range from one paragraph to several pages in length, and they are interspersed with group tributes to, for instance, the Nazi-resisting “Swingkinder,” the striking New York City newsboys, and the marchers of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade. Mitchell even offers would-be villains a role model in Elagabalus, “boy emperor of Rome,” though she notes that he, at least, came to an awful end: “Then, then! They dumped his remains in the Tiber River, to be nommed by fish for all eternity.” The entries are arranged in no evident order, and though the backmatter includes multiple booklists, a personality quiz, a glossary, and even a quick Braille primer (with Braille jokes to decode), there is no index. Still, for readers whose fires need lighting, there’s motivational kindling on nearly every page.
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats. (finished illustrations not seen) (Collective biography. 10-13)Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-751813-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Puffin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
A refreshed version of a classic that doesn’t hold up to more recent works.
A new edition of late author Zinn’s 2007 work, which was adapted for young readers by Stefoff and based on Zinn’s groundbreaking 1980 original for adults.
This updated version, also adapted by Stefoff, a writer for children and teens, contains new material by journalist Morales. The work opens with the arrival of Christopher Columbus and concludes with a chapter by Morales on social and political issues from 2006 through the election of President Joe Biden seen through the lens of Latinx identity. Zinn’s work famously takes a radically different perspective from that of most mainstream history books, viewing conflicts as driven by rich people taking advantage of poorer ones. Zinn professed his own point of view as being “critical of war, racism, and economic injustice,” an approach that felt fresh among popular works of the time. Unfortunately, despite upgrades that include Morales’ perspective, “a couple of insights into Native American history,” and “a look at the Asian American activism that flourished alongside other social movements in the 1960s and 1970s,” the book feels dated. It entirely lacks footnotes, endnotes, or references, so readers cannot verify facts or further investigate material, and the black-and-white images lack credits. Although the work seeks to be inclusive, readers may wonder about the omission of many subjects relating to race, gender, and sexuality, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act, Indian boarding schools, the Tulsa Race Massacre, Loving v. Virginia, the Stonewall Uprising, Roe v. Wade, Title IX, the AIDS crisis, and the struggle for marriage equality.
A refreshed version of a classic that doesn’t hold up to more recent works. (glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 10-16)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781644212516
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Triangle Square Books for Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2024
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