A winner.
Perfectly pitched to its target elementary audience, this tells the story of Sarah Keys Evans, a young woman who refused to give up her seat on a bus three years before Rosa Parks did the same.
While serving in the Women’s Army Corps in 1952, Evans took a bus to visit her family in North Carolina. At the time, discrimination on busses that crossed state lines was forbidden by law, but the bus company had its own rules. When she reached her home state, the driver demanded that she move to the back of the bus, and had her arrested when she refused. Evans filed a lawsuit against the bus company, eventually winning the case. Nathan reproduces many family photographs of Evans, clearly and concisely explaining her fight. She portrays Evans as an extremely shy young woman; because of her restrained personality, she comes across to readers with heightened courage. By weaving in photographs and Evans’s life story with her legal battle, the book will hold reader interest. Nathan strikes just the right balance of emotion and facts necessary to reach children within the context of a history lesson. As a result, this thin volume would be a good choice for elementary classrooms as part of a Civil Rights unit.
A winner. (Nonfiction. 6-12)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006
ISBN: 978-0-595-41761-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
From Kroll (Lewis and Clark, 1994, etc.), a handsomely illustrated biography that introduces a fascinating historical figure and will make readers yearn for more information. The facts are covered, including Fulton’s stints as sign painter, air-gun inventor, and apprentice jeweler; Kroll states clearly which details cannot be pinned down, and the probable order of events and incidents. The text is informative and lively, although in places the transitions are abrupt, e.g., one of the only references to Fulton’s personal life—“Meanwhile, on January 7, 1808, Fulton had married Harriet Livingston. She bore him four children”—quickly reverts to details on the building of boats. Warm gold-toned paintings convey a sense of times past and complement the text. Especially appealing are the depictions of the steamships. A welcome volume. (chronology) (Picture book/biography. 6-10)
Pub Date: March 15, 1999
ISBN: 0-8234-1433-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
In what has, for no discernable reason, become a rush to publish biographies of Bell, this emerges as the least formal, most approachable of the pack. MacLeod (I Heard a Little Baa, 1998) takes the great inventor, familiarly dubbed “AGB,” from Edinburgh to Ontario, on to Boston, and finally to his estate in Nova Scotia, giving his public and private lives equal attention, capturing his vast range of interest from aeronautics to audiology, and bringing his familiar exploits to life. A stubby caricature of Bell guides readers through full but not overcrowded collages of family photos, manuscript pages, simple diagrams, period advertisements, and newspaper illustrations. This is just a glimpse of the man, of course, and those who want to take a longer look can start with either the web sites listed at the back, or move on to Tom L. Matthews’s Always Inventing (p. 69). (index) (Biography. 8-10)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-55074-456-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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