Clear, engaging, and fun (and just a little iconoclastic).
What did presidents do before being elected? Tour a gallery of presidential portraits and find out!
There is always just one president at a time, but the presidents to come—maybe 10 or more—will be out there somewhere. When John F. Kennedy was elected as the 35th president in 1961, the next 10 presidents were alive. What were they doing? Lyndon Baines Johnson was Kennedy’s vice president. Jimmy Carter was a peanut farmer. George H.W. Bush was president of an oil exploration company. Donald Trump was attending a military academy, “where his father had hoped he would learn some discipline.” In his painterly art, Rex depicts a diverse group of people touring a gallery of presidential portraits. The tourists are multiracial and multiethnic, young and old. There’s a woman wearing a hijab pushing a stroller and a woman using a wheelchair. But the faces on the wall are all of white men until No. 44, President Barack Obama. There is no portrait of President Trump, but there is one of Hillary Clinton, “a woman nominated by a major party for the highest office of the land”—which, though true, is misleading in this context. Follow her gaze to an empty frame, No. 46, where the next portrait of a future president will be included. What are future presidents doing right now? The extensive backmatter is accessible and informative, and it includes reading suggestions for young readers.
Clear, engaging, and fun (and just a little iconoclastic). (presidential birthplaces, presidential requirements, bibliography) (Informational picture book. 8-12)Pub Date: March 24, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4521-7488-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
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
Essential.
A measured corrective to pervasive myths about what is often referred to as the “first Thanksgiving.”
Contextualizing them within a Native perspective, Newell (Passamaquoddy) touches on the all-too-familiar elements of the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving and its origins and the history of English colonization in the territory now known as New England. In addition to the voyage and landfall of the Mayflower, readers learn about the Doctrine of Discovery that arrogated the lands of non-Christian peoples to European settlers; earlier encounters between the Indigenous peoples of the region and Europeans; and the Great Dying of 1616-1619, which emptied the village of Patuxet by 1620. Short, two- to six-page chapters alternate between the story of the English settlers and exploring the complex political makeup of the region and the culture, agriculture, and technology of the Wampanoag—all before covering the evolution of the holiday. Refreshingly, the lens Newell offers is a Native one, describing how the Wampanoag and other Native peoples received the English rather than the other way around. Key words ranging from estuary to discover are printed in boldface in the narrative and defined in a closing glossary. Nelson (a member of the Leech Lake Band of Minnesota Chippewa) contributes soft line-and-color illustrations of the proceedings. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Essential. (Nonfiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-72637-4
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Scholastic Nonfiction
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
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