It’s inspiring, but it presents Lomong more as an object lesson than as a living person.
The story of a Sudanese “Lost Boy” who pursued and achieved his dream of running in the Olympics.
Seized at age 6 from his village by “rebel soldiers,” Lopepe (a nickname in his native Buya later altered to “Lopez”) escapes with other captives and runs for days to reach the U.N. refugee camp of Kakuma in Kenya. One day he joins a group of children watching the 2000 Olympics on a farmer’s battery-powered TV, and the sight of runner Michael Johnson fires up his ambition to become an Olympian himself. His adoption by a white New York couple and his recruitment by the trainer of a local high school’s cross-country team sends him on his way—to, ultimately, not only the 2008 (and, unacknowledged here, 2012) Games, but a joyful reunion with his biological parents, college, and a foundation dedicated to relief work in South Sudan. Except for name-dropping (notably a reference to “Brittany, the love of his life,” who gets no further mention) Eulate’s account is sketchy, particularly after Lomong’s arrival in the U.S., and thickly sentimental: he last appears figuratively receiving “the medal life gives you when you fulfill your dreams.” Uyá’s illustrations are likewise spare of detail, with stylized, folk-art–like human figures stiffly posed against near-featureless backgrounds.
It’s inspiring, but it presents Lomong more as an object lesson than as a living person. (Picture book/biography. 8-10)Pub Date: May 16, 2017
ISBN: 978-84-16733-15-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Cuento de Luz
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wholesome? Yes. Proper hard work and teamwork values in place? Yes. Paint by numbers? Oh, yes.
Olympic gold medalist Morgan runs down the celebrity-sports-fiction checklist in this series opener: New school? Check. New friends? Check. New boyfriend? Maybe! New soccer team? Check. Inspire said team to take on snooty archrival private school? Check.
Quickly shedding perfunctory initial reservations, Devin sails into seventh grade at Kentville Middle School, makes instant connections in class and at Kangaroos soccer tryouts. She meets requisite bully Mirabelle at the latter, then goes on to be elected team co-captain. After a disastrous start to the season, she helps her team’s members and even the less-than-rigorous coach land on the same winning page. Following a sleepover, a dance, team-building drills and exercises, pep rallies, minor problem-solving and motivational strategizing, Devin prods the Kangaroos into position to beat the haughty Pinewood Panthers in a climactic rematch while also schooling Mirabelle, who has jumped ship to join the rival team.
Wholesome? Yes. Proper hard work and teamwork values in place? Yes. Paint by numbers? Oh, yes. (soccer glossary) (Fiction. 8-10)Pub Date: May 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4424-8570-9
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
An immensely popular figure in his day, the Brazilian-born Alberto Santos-Dumont invented a personal dirigible that he...
So the Wright Brothers were the first to fly? Au contraire, asserts Griffith in this rare portrait of a little-known (in this country, at least) early aviator.
An immensely popular figure in his day, the Brazilian-born Alberto Santos-Dumont invented a personal dirigible that he steered around the Eiffel Tower and drove out to run errands. Griffith’s prose isn’t always polished (“If Blériot succeeded to fly first….”), but her narrative makes her subject’s stature clear as she takes him from a luncheon with jeweler Louis Cartier, who invented the wristwatch to help his friend keep track of his time in the air, to his crowning aeronautical achievement in 1906: He beat out both the secretive Wrights and pushy rival Louis Blériot as the first to fly an aircraft that could take off and land on its own power. The author covers his career in more detail in a closing note (with photos), ascribing his eventual suicide in part to remorse that, instead of ushering in an era of peace as he had predicted, aircraft were being used in warfare. Montanari’s genteel pastel-and-chalk pictures of turn-of-the-20th-century Paris and Parisians don’t capture how much larger than life Santos-Dumont was, but they do succeed in helping Griffith bring him to American audiences.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0011-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
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