Practical, moving, and deeply kind.
Author Mayrock, a teen who was bullied for many years, offers tips and inspiration to others in her position.
Advice is presented in short, visually appealing chapters. Exercises, lists, drawings, and pull quotes are interleaved with text, and blue, bolded lettering emphasizes key lines. Each chapter opens with a heartfelt "roem"—a term the author has coined for her rap poems—in type that emulates handwriting set on a lined page. Creativity, Mayrock explains, has been one of the most powerful tools in her healing process. Throughout the book, suggestions are helpfully broad-ranging, from nitty-gritty safety tips (if you go to a party, make sure you have a trustworthy ride home) to internal affirmations (bullying is never your fault). One of the most effective chapters invites readers to identify traits bullies target and reframe them as positives; the author describes her own quietness, creativity, and long, thick hair as examples. The author writes transparently from personal experience, and some of the specific emotional impacts or bullying tactics she describes might not be wholly universal. Nevertheless, her advice is varied and her compassion, genuine enough that readers are bound to find plenty of applicable nuggets as well as a wealth of encouragement.
Practical, moving, and deeply kind. (Nonfiction. 10-18)Pub Date: Aug. 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-545-86066-6
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2015
A powerful yet accessible guide to “one day in 1963 [that] [b]elongs to every age.” (authors’ note, guide to participants,...
Lewis and Lyon join forces for a fictionalized account of one of the pivotal moments in U.S. civil rights history.
Adult readers may recall Aug. 28, 1963, a searing summer Wednesday, as the occasion on which hundreds of thousands gathered in the nation’s capital to participate in the March for Jobs and Freedom. Better known as the March on Washington, this landmark occasion is often remembered for the epic “I Have a Dream” speech Martin Luther King Jr. delivered that day, along with galvanizing remarks and performances from other civil rights leaders and well-known African-American artists. Later, the March would be recognized for its critical role in helping to facilitate passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. While Lewis and Lyon include all of that historical import, what sets their account apart is less their rendering of the event’s fabled leaders than the varied “voices” in the throng who traveled from all over as “the day swelled to keep faith with its promise / of distressing the assured and assuring the distressed.” Through over 70 largely first-person poems, the poets rekindle the spirit of the fight for racial equality in the United States with imagined voices of young and old, black and white, educated and underprivileged, supporters and detractors and drive home the volume’s theme of taking personal responsibility in helping this country “steer toward justice together.”
A powerful yet accessible guide to “one day in 1963 [that] [b]elongs to every age.” (authors’ note, guide to participants, bibliography, websites, further reading, index) (Poetry/fiction. 10 & up)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62091-785-5
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: July 31, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
This excellent, timely overview will open eyes and deserves a wide readership.
Hasak-Lowy introduces a polemic: Over the last war-ridden century, nonviolent activism has proven to be a powerful way to effect social change.
He chronologically presents five significant movements, focusing on leaders who fostered the resources of aggrieved people—their bodies, courage, and persistence—to oppose injustice nonviolently. Mohandas K. Gandhi, initially among Indian workers in South Africa, then in India, adopted techniques of nonviolent resistance to gain independence from British colonial rule. The American suffragist Alice Paul, drawing on her Quaker upbringing, led the “Silent Sentinels”: banner-wielding women who demonstrated at the White House. These activists endured beatings, arrests, incarceration, forced feedings during hunger strikes, and more in their determined quest for their full rights as citizens. The chapter on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. credits his many mentors and collaborators, presenting their arduous work in planning and executing civil action in Birmingham. In early May 1963, thousands of demonstrating Birmingham youth endured water cannons, police dogs, and widespread arrests, stunning the nation. Chapters on Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers movement and Vaclav Havel and Czechoslovakia’s astounding Velvet Revolution round out the volume. The author deftly connects these movements: Far from avoiding conflict, each leader actively engaged in it, helping people reassume the power previously ceded to their oppressors. A concluding section cogently illuminates Greta Thunberg’s urgent work on the climate crisis.
This excellent, timely overview will open eyes and deserves a wide readership. (other notable movements, source notes, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4111-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
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