A complex piece of history is told in simple language.
This nonfiction beginning reader highlights the role of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the March on Washington on Aug., 28, 1963. It also features a constellation of other activists who fought for African-Americans’ civil rights, some of whom the text names, such as gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, who often inspired Dr. King through song before he spoke, as at the march. Other activists appear only in the illustrations, and Comport leaves it to the reader to figure out who they are, such as the iconic image of Ruby Bridges being accompanied from William Frantz Elementary School by federal marshals in New Orleans and Rosa Parks sitting on a front bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama. Unlike Doreen Rappaport and Bryan Collier’s Martin’s Big Words (2001), this snapshot of Dr. King’s life does not include his assassination, but it also does not sugarcoat conflicts endemic to the civil rights movement. On one page, while a young black man waits to be served at a lunch counter, four young white men surround him in anger. On another, Dr. King sits thoughtfully behind jail bars. Comport’s artfully textured illustrations, rendered in muted colors, capture both the time period and the mood of these emotionally charged scenes well.
An excellent text to introduce nascent readers to Dr. King’s story. (author’s note) (Informational early reader. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-101-93669-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
Categories: CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | CHILDREN'S HISTORY
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The iconic animator introduces young readers to each “happy place” in his life.
The tally begins with his childhood home in Marceline, Missouri, and climaxes with Disneyland (carefully designed to be “the happiest place on Earth”), but the account really centers on finding his true happy place, not on a map but in drawing. In sketching out his early flubs and later rocket to the top, the fictive narrator gives Ub Iwerks and other Disney studio workers a nod (leaving his labor disputes with them unmentioned) and squeezes in quick references to his animated films, from Steamboat Willie to Winnie the Pooh (sans Fantasia and Song of the South). Eliopoulos incorporates stills from the films into his cartoon illustrations and, characteristically for this series, depicts Disney as a caricature, trademark mustache in place on outsized head even in childhood years and child sized even as an adult. Human figures default to white, with occasional people of color in crowd scenes and (ahistorically) in the animation studio. One unidentified animator builds up the role-modeling with an observation that Walt and Mickey were really the same (“Both fearless; both resourceful”). An assertion toward the end—“So when do you stop being a child? When you stop dreaming”—muddles the overall follow-your-bliss message. A timeline to the EPCOT Center’s 1982 opening offers photos of the man with select associates, rodent and otherwise. An additional series entry, I Am Marie Curie, publishes simultaneously, featuring a gowned, toddler-sized version of the groundbreaking physicist accepting her two Nobel prizes.
Blandly laudatory. (bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2875-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
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Contemporary and historical female artists are showcased for younger readers.
The artists’ names aren’t presented in A-to-Z order. The alphabetical arrangement actually identifies signature motifs (“D is for Dots” for Yayoi Kusama); preferred media (“I is for Ink” for Elizabeth Catlett); or cultural, natural, or personal motives underlying artworks (“N is for Nature” for Maya Lin). Various media are covered, such as painting, box assemblage, collage, photography, pottery, and sculpture. One artist named isn’t an individual but rather the Gee’s Bend Collective, “generations of African American women in Gee’s Bend, Alabama,” renowned for quilting artistry. Each artist and her or their work is introduced on a double-page spread that features succinct descriptions conveying much admiring, easily comprehensible information. Colorful illustrations include graphically simplified representations of the women at work or alongside examples of their art; the spreads provide ample space for readers to understand what the artists produced. Several women were alive when this volume was written; some died in the recent past or last century; two worked several hundred years ago, when female artists were rare. Commendably, the profiled artists are very diverse: African American, Latina, Native American, Asian, white, and multiethnic women are represented; this diversity is reflected in their work, as explained via texts and illustrations.
A solid introduction to fascinating artists, some familiar, others less so. (minibiographies, discussion questions, art suggestions) (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-10872-7
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
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