Inspiring and healing as it educates, this volume belongs beside its companion on every bookshelf.
Harrison celebrated black women of note in Little Leaders (2017); here, with an assist from Johnson, she presents a companion volume of profiles from black history, this one focusing on black men.
This is a book many have been waiting for, and it does not disappoint. The winning formula that endeared Little Leaders to readers is employed again here: One page of biographical text faces a full-page portrait of a young-looking figure with a serenely smiling brown face with closed eyes. The figure’s clothing and the background setting design represent his field of contribution. The text begins with each leader’s early life and is held together with a thread showing how the leader found an interest, learned and improved, worked hard, and made his work matter in the lives of others. Ordered chronologically, the names include well-known figures such as Frederick Douglass, Alvin Ailey, and Prince, but there are also many lesser-known names, such as historian Arturo Schomburg and astronaut Leland Melvin. Included also are international legends, such as Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembène and British Ghanaian architect Sir David Adjaye. Whereas hairstyling details created an illusion of visual variation in Little Leaders, here the uniformity of the portraits’ faces is more pronounced—yet this allows readers to see that a black boy can play at and ultimately grow into any one of these roles. A “Draw Your Own Little Legend” spread at the end invites readers into Harrison’s creative process.
Inspiring and healing as it educates, this volume belongs beside its companion on every bookshelf. (further bios, further reading, sources) (Collective biography. 7-12)Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-316-47514-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share.
A multiaward–winning author recalls her childhood and the joy of becoming a writer.
Writing in free verse, Woodson starts with her 1963 birth in Ohio during the civil rights movement, when America is “a country caught / / between Black and White.” But while evoking names such as Malcolm, Martin, James, Rosa and Ruby, her story is also one of family: her father’s people in Ohio and her mother’s people in South Carolina. Moving south to live with her maternal grandmother, she is in a world of sweet peas and collards, getting her hair straightened and avoiding segregated stores with her grandmother. As the writer inside slowly grows, she listens to family stories and fills her days and evenings as a Jehovah’s Witness, activities that continue after a move to Brooklyn to reunite with her mother. The gift of a composition notebook, the experience of reading John Steptoe’s Stevieand Langston Hughes’ poetry, and seeing letters turn into words and words into thoughts all reinforce her conviction that “[W]ords are my brilliance.” Woodson cherishes her memories and shares them with a graceful lyricism; her lovingly wrought vignettes of country and city streets will linger long after the page is turned.
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share. (Memoir/poetry. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-25251-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
Though a bit loose around the edges, a charmer nevertheless.
Tales of a fourth grade ne’er-do-well.
It seems that young Jordan is stuck in a never-ending string of bad luck. Sure, no one’s perfect (except maybe goody-two-shoes William Feranek), but Jordan can’t seem to keep his attention focused on the task at hand. Try as he may, things always go a bit sideways, much to his educators’ chagrin. But Jordan promises himself that fourth grade will be different. As the year unfolds, it does prove to be different, but in a way Jordan couldn’t possibly have predicted. This humorous memoir perfectly captures the square-peg-in-a-round-hole feeling many kids feel and effectively heightens that feeling with comic situations and a splendid villain. Jordan’s teacher, Mrs. Fisher, makes an excellent foil, and the book’s 1970s setting allows for her cruelty to go beyond anything most contemporary readers could expect. Unfortunately, the story begins to run out of steam once Mrs. Fisher exits. Recollections spiral, losing their focus and leading to a more “then this happened” and less cause-and-effect structure. The anecdotes are all amusing and Jordan is an endearing protagonist, but the book comes dangerously close to wearing out its welcome with sheer repetitiveness. Thankfully, it ends on a high note, one pleasant and hopeful enough that readers will overlook some of the shabbier qualities. Jordan is White and Jewish while there is some diversity among his classmates; Mrs. Fisher is White.
Though a bit loose around the edges, a charmer nevertheless. (Memoir. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-64723-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
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