In a companion to Amelia to Zora (2005), Chin-Lee selects an alphabetical array of men for the same treatment—a two or three paragraph biographical précis that includes a childhood incident, a description of important accomplishments and a pithy quote. Though such usual suspects as Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela are in the broadly international lineup, so are plenty of surprises (as you’d guess from the title), from filmmaker Akira Kurosawa and composer Zoltán Kodaly to Pashtun leader Badshah Abdul Ghaffa Khan, poet Octavio Paz, athlete Greg Louganis and bandleader Xavier Cugat Mingall. Using cut-paper shapes and paint, Halsey and Addy add stylized but generally recognizable figurative or symbolic portraits for each—posing Frank Lloyd Wright against a glittering stained glass window, for instance, but substituting a cello for Yo Yo Ma, and a dog and a bell for Ivan Petrovich Pavlov. Though most of these men are no longer active, or even living, and not all “changed the world” to quite the same degree, they’re still worth knowing. (source list) (Picture book/collective biography. 8-10)
