Heartbreaking and legendary.
After losing his family to treacherous slaveholders, Henry “Box” Brown risks his life in an unusual bid for freedom.
Weatherford’s account, written in Brown’s voice, takes readers through his life and times in measured lines of poetry, with one to four poems per spread; most have six lines, like the sides of the box. Poems such as “Work,” “Brutality,” “Nat,” “Laws,” and “Crop” document Brown’s early life as a slave. After he marries Nancy, her master goes back on his promise never to sell her. Brown tries to stay with Nancy through several sales, but when she and their children are finally sold away, never to return, Brown asks, “Lord, what more do I have to lose?” He dreams of freedom and prays for freedom until he is inspired to ship himself in a box to a trustworthy contact up North, where he begins the rest of his life. This lengthy retelling details what life was like for both enslaved and free Blacks at this time in U.S. history as well as the pain and near suffocation Brown suffered on his way to freedom. The poems are set against a white background facing full-page textured paintings featuring stylized figures and patterns reminiscent of quilts. Brown’s story never gets old, and this illustrated biography is rich in context and detail that make it heavier on history and better for slightly older readers than, for instance, Ellen Levine and Kadir Nelson’s Henry’s Freedom Box (2007).
Heartbreaking and legendary. (timeline, bibliography, illustrator’s note, author’s note) (Picture book/biography/poetry. 8-12)Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7636-9156-1
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Readers can count on plenty of chuckles along with a mild challenge or two.
Rollicking verses on “numerous” topics.
Returning to the theme of her Mathematickles! (2003), illustrated by Steven Salerno, Franco gathers mostly new ruminations with references to numbers or arithmetical operations. “Do numerals get out of sorts? / Do fractions get along? / Do equal signs complain and gripe / when kids get problems wrong?” Along with universal complaints, such as why 16 dirty socks go into a washing machine but only 12 clean ones come out or why there are “three months of summer / but nine months of school!" (“It must have been grown-ups / who made up / that rule!”), the poet offers a series of numerical palindromes, a phone number guessing game, a two-voice poem for performative sorts, and, to round off the set, a cozy catalog of countable routines: “It’s knowing when night falls / and darkens my bedroom, / my pup sleeps just two feet from me. / That watching the stars flicker / in the velvety sky / is my glimpse of infinity!” Tey takes each entry and runs with it, adding comically surreal scenes of appropriately frantic or settled mood, generally featuring a diverse group of children joined by grotesques that look like refugees from Hieronymous Bosch paintings. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Readers can count on plenty of chuckles along with a mild challenge or two. (Poetry/mathematical picture book. 8-11)Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0116-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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