A bright salutation of a story, with one determined woman at its center.
Pimentel tenders the story of Bobbi Gibb, the first woman to (surreptitiously) run the classic Boston Marathon, with illustrations that pay close attention to the route along the way.
Hot on the heels of Kristina Yee and Frances Poletti’s The Girl Who Ran, illustrated by Susanna Chapman (2017), is another rendering of Gibb’s saga. This time the story pivots less around Gibb’s trick to evade the officials than the sheer joy of running—it is as though Gibb is on one long runner’s high, and it’s good fun to run along with her. Readers learn that Gibb trained in nurse’s shoes, making “her feet feel weightless” when she bought proper running shoes (boys’ size six, as there are none for “girls”). Once she was in the race and doffed her sweatshirt to avoid heat exhaustion, she was cheered on by all but the most curmudgeonly marathon watchers. Archer provides the landscape through which the blonde white woman trains and then the marathon path itself. Her artwork is an eyeful, a deep-dish mixture of oil paint and collage with tissue paper and hand-stamped patterned papers as materials. In addition, she adds mile markers and elevation notes to convey the runners’ toils and why it is called “Heartbreak Hill.” The tiny smattering of African-Americans engaged in the race and in the crowds is sad but true.
A bright salutation of a story, with one determined woman at its center. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-101-99668-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
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
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