PLB 0-688-10259-X Taking a big step up from its glamorous, superficial predecessor, African Beginnings (p. 111), this volume looks at the history of slavery in Europe and Africa, plus the growth and decline of the New World slave trade, with a narrative that is closely based on contemporary accounts and full-color and black-and-white illustrations from a variety of sources. After creating a historical background for the Age of Exploration, the authors explain how the slave trade came to dominate commerce with Africa, describe in harsh detail the treatment of captives before and during the infamous Middle Passage, take up the topic of slave mutinies (including the Amistad revolt), and end with the slaves’ arrival in port. Cooper’s emotionally intense, soft focus scenes of agonized or downcast captives are interspersed with crisply reproduced, mostly well-chosen art from Ancient Egypt to a mid-20th century mural; back matter includes a detailed chronology to 1808, when the trade was outlawed in the US, and a well-founded bibliography. A strong summary of an epic historical tragedy that is both sobering and illuminating. (index) (Picture book/nonfiction. 9-12) . . . —Hopkinson, Deborah A BAND OF ANGELS Illus. by Ra£l Col¢n Atheneum (40 pp.) $16.00 Jan. 1, 1999 ISBN: 0-679-81062-8 This fictionalized version of the formation of Fisk University’s Jubilee Singers should be packaged with handkerchiefs, because by the end there won’t be a dry eye among readers. Taking to the road in the early 1870s in a last-ditch effort to keep their college open, an African-American chorus plays to nearly empty houses as long as they sing “the popular white songs”; when, led by their pianist Ella Sheppard, they switch to then seldom-heard spirituals and slaves’ songs, they go on to international fame. In Col¢n’s stylized, combed paintings, a golden light shines down on nine solemn, dignified people singing their hearts out; it’s a portrayal that is so convincing that readers will almost hear the music. Hopkinson (Birdie’s Lighthouse, 1997, etc.) frames her moving, inspirational account as a modern family story shared by Sheppard’s descendants one of whom is a librarian at Fisk today. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-10258-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1998
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 succinct, edifying read, but don’t buy it for the pictures.
Abraham Lincoln’s ascent to the presidency is recounted in a fluid, easy-to-read biography for early readers.
Simple, direct sentences stress Lincoln’s humble upbringing, his honesty, and his devotion to acting with moral conviction. “Lincoln didn’t seem like a man who would be president one day. But he studied hard and became a lawyer. He cared about people and about justice.” Slavery and Lincoln’s signature achievement of emancipation are explained in broad yet defined, understandable analogies. “At that time, in the South, the law let white people own black people, just as they owned a house or a horse.” Readers are clearly given the president’s perspective through some documented memorable quotes from his own letters. “Lincoln did not like slavery. ‘If slavery is not wrong,’ he wrote to a friend ‘nothing is wrong.’ ” (The text does not clarify that this letter was written in 1865 and not before he ascended to the presidency, as implied by the book.) As the war goes on and Lincoln makes his decision to free the slaves in the “Southern states”—“a bold move”—Lincoln’s own words describe his thinking: “ ‘If my name ever goes into history,’ Lincoln said, ‘it will be for this act.’ ” A very basic timeline, which mentions the assassination unaddressed in the text, is followed by backmatter providing photographs, slightly more detailed historical information, and legacy. It’s a pity that the text is accompanied by unremarkable, rudimentary opaque paintings.
A succinct, edifying read, but don’t buy it for the pictures. (Informational early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-243256-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
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