A highly recommended addition to this stellar series.
In this series of chapter-book biographies, the common theme is persistence, and that word certainly applies to Oprah Winfrey.
Born to a single mother in Kosciusko, Mississippi, during the Jim Crow era, Oprah was raised by her grandparents on their farm. Once she started school, it was obvious she was bright. However, Oprah’s life was unsettled, as she moved to Wisconsin to join her mother, then two years later to Tennessee to live with her father. Her father was strict about school and church attendance, two areas that gave Oprah opportunities to excel. Her love of reading was noticed, and she was recommended for the Upward Bound program and a rigorous high school. Nevertheless, she struggled with her behavior. During those tumultuous years, Oprah discovered the writings of poet Maya Angelou, and they helped her settle in to schoolwork and speech tournaments. That led to her getting an after-school job at a radio station, then a TV station during college. A move to a Baltimore station led to her success in the interview format and ultimately The Oprah Winfrey Show and international fame. This is a lively introduction to the life of a woman who beat many odds to become successful. Award-winning author Watson describes Oprah’s triumphs as well as her difficulties, including sexual abuse, in age-appropriate prose. Young readers who know only the accomplished philanthropist will take inspiration from knowing of her beginnings. Flint’s black-and-white illustrations enhance the text.
A highly recommended addition to this stellar series. (suggested activities, acknowledgments, references) (Biography. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-11598-5
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
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
Blandly laudatory.
The iconic animator introduces young readers to each “happy place” in his life.
The tally begins with his childhood home in Marceline, Missouri, and climaxes with Disneyland (carefully designed to be “the happiest place on Earth”), but the account really centers on finding his true happy place, not on a map but in drawing. In sketching out his early flubs and later rocket to the top, the fictive narrator gives Ub Iwerks and other Disney studio workers a nod (leaving his labor disputes with them unmentioned) and squeezes in quick references to his animated films, from Steamboat Willie to Winnie the Pooh (sans Fantasia and Song of the South). Eliopoulos incorporates stills from the films into his cartoon illustrations and, characteristically for this series, depicts Disney as a caricature, trademark mustache in place on outsized head even in childhood years and child sized even as an adult. Human figures default to white, with occasional people of color in crowd scenes and (ahistorically) in the animation studio. One unidentified animator builds up the role-modeling with an observation that Walt and Mickey were really the same (“Both fearless; both resourceful”). An assertion toward the end—“So when do you stop being a child? When you stop dreaming”—muddles the overall follow-your-bliss message. A timeline to the EPCOT Center’s 1982 opening offers photos of the man with select associates, rodent and otherwise. An additional series entry, I Am Marie Curie, publishes simultaneously, featuring a gowned, toddler-sized version of the groundbreaking physicist accepting her two Nobel prizes.
Blandly laudatory. (bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2875-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
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