A splendid picture-book celebration of an artist and activist.
Pencil in hand, faced with an unjust world, Gyo Fujikawa created a new future.
At 5, Japanese American Gyo Fujikawa didn’t yet know what she wanted to be. She knew a pencil fit well in her hand, and she liked to fill empty pages with pictures of her world. As she grew, Fujikawa used her passion for art and her mother’s activism to guide her education and inspiration. Defying gender conventions, Fujikawa attended college in 1926, when few American women did. Studying in Japan, she exchanged restrictive art classes for travel and aesthetic immersion. Back in the U.S., her family was sent to an internment camp on the West Coast while she began an art career at Disney on the East Coast, causing Fujikawa to lose her desire to draw. Eventually, she found a way to wield her craft to fight injustice. Her first book, Babies, published in 1963, featured racially diverse babies playing together and became a huge success despite publisher prejudice and misgivings. Morstad’s artwork precisely balances white space with vignettes, black-and-white illustrations with eye-catching color. Often mimicking Fujikawa’s style, Morstad layers engaging details and deep emotional resonance onto Maclear’s spare, poetic text. Backmatter includes a detailed timeline with photos and quotes, an extensive note from the creators, and a selected bibliography and sources list.
A splendid picture-book celebration of an artist and activist. (Picture book/biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-244762-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
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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