by M.T. Anderson & illustrated by Kevin Hawkes ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2001
Readers don’t need to know anything about the composer to enjoy this lively biography, but it is hard to imagine anyone reading these pages who wouldn’t want to run right out to hear the “Water Music” or a snatch of the “Messiah.” Handel’s father didn’t want him to be a musician, but the boy snuck a clavichord into the attic and practiced in secret anyway. (“Not everyone has the courage to smuggle a clavichord past their parents.”) Thanks to the intervention of a noble, Handel was allowed to begin training, but as a compromise, was forced to study law as well. He studied in various places in Germany, where he was born, traveled in Italy, but settled in England to write opera. As Anderson (Burger Wuss, 1999, etc.) describes Handel’s operas, “The characters would sing arias in Italian, some of the most beautiful music ever heard onstage. Then they would stab each other.” Handel’s duel with a friend, the success of the “Water Music” and the disaster of the “Royal Fireworks,” and the final and continuous triumph of the “Messiah” are energetically reported in a light-hearted accounting. Hawkes (Dial-a-Ghost, p. 741, etc.) employs 18th-century borders and patterns in his fulsomely colored acrylics: light and shadow are used to excellent effect, and humorous touches abound. Handel himself, with his cherubic face and large fuzzy white wig, bounds from almost every page, fairly glowing with good will and music. (chronology, discography, further adult reading) (Biography. 8-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-1046-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
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by Liz Kleinrock & Caroline Kusin Pritchard ; illustrated by Iris Gottlieb ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 24, 2024
A celebration of progressive Judaism and an inclusive primer on Jews making a difference in the world.
This wide-ranging collection of short biographies highlights 36 Jewish figures from around the globe and across centuries.
Explicitly pushing back against homogenous depictions of Jewish people, the authors demonstrate the ethnic, racial, and gender diversity of Jews. Each spread includes a brief biography paired with a stylized portrait reminiscent of those in Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo’s Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls (2016). A pull quote or sidebar accompanies each subject; sidebars include “Highlighting Jewish Paralympic Athletes,” “Jewish Stringed Music,” and “Ethiopian Jews in Israel.” Kleinrock and Pritchard’s roster of subjects makes a compelling case for the vastness and variety of Jewish experience—from a contemporary Ethiopian American teen to a 16th-century Portuguese philanthropist—while still allowing them to acknowledge better-known figures. The entry on Raquel Montoya-Lewis, an associate justice of the Washington Supreme Court and an enrolled member of the Pueblo Isleta Indian tribe, discusses her mission to reimagine criminal justice for Indigenous people; the sidebar name-checks Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan. The bios are organized around themes of Jewish principles such as Pikuach Nefesh (translated from the Hebrew as “to save a life”) and Adam Yachid (translated as the “unique value of every person”); each section includes an introduction to an organization that centers diverse Jewish experiences.
A celebration of progressive Judaism and an inclusive primer on Jews making a difference in the world. (resources) (Nonfiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9780063285712
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
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by Jacqueline Woodson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 28, 2014
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share. (Memoir/poetry. 8-12)
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A multiaward–winning author recalls her childhood and the joy of becoming a writer.
Writing in free verse, Woodson starts with her 1963 birth in Ohio during the civil rights movement, when America is “a country caught / / between Black and White.” But while evoking names such as Malcolm, Martin, James, Rosa and Ruby, her story is also one of family: her father’s people in Ohio and her mother’s people in South Carolina. Moving south to live with her maternal grandmother, she is in a world of sweet peas and collards, getting her hair straightened and avoiding segregated stores with her grandmother. As the writer inside slowly grows, she listens to family stories and fills her days and evenings as a Jehovah’s Witness, activities that continue after a move to Brooklyn to reunite with her mother. The gift of a composition notebook, the experience of reading John Steptoe’s Stevie and Langston Hughes’ poetry, and seeing letters turn into words and words into thoughts all reinforce her conviction that “[W]ords are my brilliance.” Woodson cherishes her memories and shares them with a graceful lyricism; her lovingly wrought vignettes of country and city streets will linger long after the page is turned.
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share. (Memoir/poetry. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-25251-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
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