An excellent work of children’s nonfiction that just may inspire the next Chuck Yeager.
This straightforward biography engages young readers’ imaginations, respects their intelligence and takes them along on an exciting, real-life adventure.
From Chuck Yeager’s childhood in the Depression, through his experience in World War II, flight school and finally his chance to pilot the first supersonic flight, this debut children’s book brings his biography to life and includes a science lesson for eager young minds, as well. Biermann expertly weaves vignettes from Yeager’s life—like the time he plowed a test plane through a chicken coop—into the narrative, creating a tale with a cinematic, easy-to-follow rhythm. These anecdotes illustrate Yeager’s character in a natural, show-don’t-tell fashion. Biermann’s explanation of the science behind sound waves, the sound barrier and supersonic flight is so clear and memorable, it’s sure to stick with readers well into their adulthood. (Some adults who read this to kids will be relieved to have this burden lifted from them, so they don’t have to sputter out shaky explanations themselves.) While this story may inspire a lifelong interest in science, it’s unlikely to inspire a lifelong love of poetic language. From the very first paragraph—“Chuck Yeager loved to fly airplanes. He loved to fly high. He loved to fly fast.”—the language is a bit unadorned. But it is crystal clear, precise and geared with almost mathematical accuracy to a young elementary reading level. Science- and adventure-minded readers who are just here for the sonic boom won’t care that the book reads more like a technical manual than poetry. The illustrations are of a piece with the language: precise down to the buttons and badges on Yeager’s flight suit but flat and stylized, reminiscent of old-school film strips. And, like the language, while the illustrations are not inspiring or beautiful, they are perfectly suited to the book’s likely audience, who will probably be scrutinizing the cockpit controls.
An excellent work of children’s nonfiction that just may inspire the next Chuck Yeager.Pub Date: Dec. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1480276321
Page Count: 48
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Born in 1880 in a tiny backwater in Alabama, Helen Keller lived a life familiar to many from the play and movie The Miracle Worker, as well as countless biographies. There’s no denying the drama in the story of the deaf and blind child for whom the world of language became possible through a dedicated and fanatically stubborn teacher, Annie Sullivan. But Helen’s life after that is even more remarkable: she went to high school and then to Radcliffe; she was a radical political thinker and a member of the Wobblies; she supported herself by lecture tours and vaudeville excursions as well as through the kindness of many. Dash (The Longitude Prize, p. 1483) does a clear-sighted and absorbing job of examining Annie’s prickly personality and the tender family that she, Helen, and Annie’s husband John Macy formed. She touches on the family pressures that conspired to keep Helen from her own pursuit of love and marriage; she makes vivid not only Helen’s brilliant and vibrant intelligence and personality, but the support of many people who loved her, cared for her, and served her. She also does not shrink from the describing the social and class divisions that kept some from crediting Annie Sullivan and others intent on making Helen into a puppet and no more. Riveting reading for students in need of inspiration, or who’re overcoming disability or studying changing expectations for women. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-590-90715-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
An inviting portrayal of a legendary political leader.
South African revolutionary Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom (1994), adapted in graphic form.
The original found millions of readers worldwide. Since comics often cross cultural boundaries and enable semiliterate and beginning readers to gain easier access to texts, this could find an even more diverse audience. In the foreword, Mandela writes that, for older readers “whose eyesight is not what it was, there is the option of simply looking at the pictures.” That good-natured remark is characteristic of the man. The story opens with his birth in 1918 and the giving of his all-too-appropriate birth name, Rolihlahla, “troublemaker.” The Mandela family was removed from its village by magisterial decree, the first in a long line of encounters between Mandela and authorities working to serve the apartheid state. The drawings, produced by the Umlando Wezithombe collective of graphic artists and illustrators, are detail-heavy and sophisticated, though most of the white characters are on the cartoonish side, all snarls and drool. One major exception is Bill Clinton, who figures in the later pages and whom the artists capture in a perfectly nuanced pose, left hand on chin, pensive look on brow. The story line takes the reader through the complexities of the apartheid regime and Mandela’s legal troubles with it, and his release from maximum-security prison at Robben Island after decades of imprisonment as anticlimactic as it was in real life. It also depicts his near-overnight transition from outlaw to national leader with much the confusion and uncertainty that Mandela himself must have felt. “You know that you are really famous the day you discover that you have become a comic character,” he writes.
An inviting portrayal of a legendary political leader.Pub Date: July 18, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-393-07082-8
Page Count: 204
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2009
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