A lively look at the ingenuity of women suffragists near the end of their long road to the vote.
Rockliff introduces Nell Richardson and Alice Burke, whose five-month, 10,000-mile crusade for women’s voting rights drew crowds and made colorful newspaper copy in 1916.
Toting a kitten, a “teeny-tiny typewriter” and “an itsy-bitsy sewing machine”—the better to demonstrate, during speeches, women’s many skills—the women depart New York City in a yellow Saxon runabout. They journey south, then west, across Texas to California, returning through northern border states. (A simple double-page map charts the route.) The spry narrative focuses mainly on the outward-bound segments, as Nell and Alice weather an East Coast blizzard, address curious crowds, join a circus parade in Georgia, and attend genteel socials. Rockliff knits from a skein of exciting cross-country events, all drawn from contemporary newspaper accounts. “They dodged bullets at the Mexican border… / drove on through the desert… / and got lost for days… / till, finally, they reached… // CALIFORNIA!” Hooper’s sunny full-page and spot pictures combine pencil and printmaking in digital layers that evoke the off-register color separations of mid-20th-century children’s illustrations. Most faces, features penciled in, are left as white as the background paper, with occasional pink or tan accents for cheeks and noses. Diversity is expressed in crowd scenes and on a New Orleans veranda, with a few faces tinted tan or brown.
A lively look at the ingenuity of women suffragists near the end of their long road to the vote. (historical note, source note, bibliography of children’s titles) (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7893-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
A fair choice, but it may need some support to really blast off.
This rocket hopes to take its readers on a birthday blast—but there may or may not be enough fuel.
Once a year, a one-seat rocket shoots out from Earth. Why? To reveal a special congratulatory banner for a once-a-year event. The second-person narration puts readers in the pilot’s seat and, through a (mostly) ballad-stanza rhyme scheme (abcb), sends them on a journey toward the sun, past meteors, and into the Kuiper belt. The final pages include additional information on how birthdays are measured against the Earth’s rotations around the sun. Collingridge aims for the stars with this title, and he mostly succeeds. The rhyme scheme flows smoothly, which will make listeners happy, but the illustrations (possibly a combination of paint with digital enhancements) may leave the viewers feeling a little cold. The pilot is seen only with a 1960s-style fishbowl helmet that completely obscures the face, gender, and race by reflecting the interior of the rocket ship. This may allow readers/listeners to picture themselves in the role, but it also may divest them of any emotional connection to the story. The last pages—the backside of a triple-gatefold spread—label the planets and include Pluto. While Pluto is correctly labeled as a dwarf planet, it’s an unusual choice to include it but not the other dwarfs: Ceres, Eris, etc. The illustration also neglects to include the asteroid belt or any of the solar system’s moons.
A fair choice, but it may need some support to really blast off. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 31, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-338-18949-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: David Fickling/Phoenix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales.
The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965) upgrades to The Mice and the Rolls-Royce.
In Windsor Castle there sits a “dollhouse like no other,” replete with working plumbing, electricity, and even a full library of real, tiny books. Called Queen Mary’s Dollhouse, it also plays host to the Whiskers family, a clan of mice that has maintained the house for generations. Henry Whiskers and his cousin Jeremy get up to the usual high jinks young mice get up to, but when Henry’s little sister Isabel goes missing at the same time that the humans decide to clean the house up, the usually bookish big brother goes on the adventure of his life. Now Henry is driving cars, avoiding cats, escaping rats, and all before the upcoming mouse Masquerade. Like an extended version of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904), Priebe keeps this short chapter book constantly moving, with Duncan’s peppy art a cute capper. Oddly, the dollhouse itself plays only the smallest of roles in this story, and no factual information on the real Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House is included at the tale’s end (an opportunity lost).
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales. (Fantasy. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6575-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
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