Both a tribute to Hamilton’s genius and an invitation to those yet to come.
Poems and pictures trace Virginia Hamilton’s family history, childhood, and growth into a writer.
Virginia Hamilton was a MacArthur “Genius” and the first Black author to win the Newbery Medal. Crews wisely avoids introducing her subject as a great writer to picture-book readers unlikely to know her books already, instead focusing on the circumstances that helped to make her one. Hamilton’s ancestors fled slavery for the Ohio countryside, where the family flourished. Her parents nourished their youngest daughter’s imagination, captured in two tender poems. In the first, young Hamilton’s mother transforms a frightening storm into a dance between a tree she dubs Grandmother Lilac and the wind; in the other, her father plays mandolin and tells stories about great Black Americans. Cuddled in between, a poem entitled “Free”—set against a double-page illustration of Hamilton’s bare feet striding confidently through green grass—tells readers “Virginia was free. / To be a dreamer. / To be a wanderer. / To be her own unique self. / Free to be.” When a 9-year-old Hamilton decided to become a writer, “Nobody laughed or said, / ‘You can’t do that.’ ” In poem after poem—all in delicate, unrhymed verse—Crews carefully gives budding writers a role model. The digital illustrations have the look of cut-paper collage, excelling when offering visual metaphors but less effective when depicting narrative.
Both a tribute to Hamilton’s genius and an invitation to those yet to come. (author’s note, timeline, bibliographies) (Picture-book poetry/biography. 5-9)Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2024
ISBN: 9780316383592
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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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