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LEO POLITI

Name: LEO POLITI
Author: Ann Stalcup
ISBN: 1-893110-38-9

ARTIST OF THE ANGELS

by Ann Stalcup & illustrated by Leo Politi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 2004

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Stalcup bases her biography, the first ever, of Politi, largely on interviews and personal memories—and rather than shape it as a conventional tally of travels and awards, she focuses on this Caldecott-winner’s character, artistic development, and favorite themes. Born in Fresno, Politi grew up in California and Italy. He returned to the former as an adult on a voyage through the Panama Canal and up the west coast that crystallized his interest in Latino culture. He settled in the Los Angeles area, where he became an inveterate observer of Olvera Street and other ethnic neighborhoods. Adding a generous mix of paintings, sketches, and spot art, some of it previously unpublished, the author trails along, pointing out, for instance, how the caricatures in his first children’s book, Little Pancho (1938), became real figures, drawn from life, in later titles, and how innovative it was then to depict ethnically specific children in particular, rather than generic, neighborhoods. Closing with a timeline and an annotated bibliography, this perceptive portrait should go far toward rekindling interest in an artist and writer whose reputation, outside his customary haunts at least, has faded considerably. (Biography. 10-12)

Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2004

ISBN: 1-893110-38-9

Page Count: 104

Publisher: Silver Moon Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2004

Categories:

CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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ALL BY HERSELF

POEMS

by Ann Whitford Paul ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1999

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Prose poems celebrate the feats of young heroines, some of them famous, and some not as well-known. Paul (Hello Toes! Hello Feet!, 1998, etc.) recounts moments in the lives of women such as Rachel Carson, Amelia Earhart, and Wilma Rudolph; these moments don’t necessarily reflect what made them famous as much as they are pivotal events in their youth that influenced the direction of their lives. For Earhart, it was sliding down the roof of the tool shed in a home-made roller coaster: “It’s like flying!” For Rudolph, it was the struggle to learn to walk without her foot brace. Other women, such as Violet Sheehy, who rescued her family from a fire in Hinckley, Minnesota, or Harriet Hanson, a union supporter in the fabric mills of Massachusetts, are celebrated for their brave decisions made under extreme duress. Steirnagle’s sweeping paintings powerfully exude the strength of character exhibited by these young women. A commemorative book, that honors both quiet and noisy acts of heroism. (Picture book/poetry. 6-9)

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999

ISBN: 0-15-201477-2

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999

Categories:

CHILDREN'S POETRY | CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

- BOOK REVIEW
IF ANIMALS TRICK-OR-TREATED
by Ann Whitford Paul ; illustrated by David Walker

- BOOK REVIEW
WHO LOVES LITTLE LEMUR?
by Ann Whitford Paul ; illustrated by Jay Fleck

- BOOK REVIEW
IF ANIMALS GAVE THANKS
by Ann Whitford Paul ; illustrated by David Walker

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IF A BUS COULD TALK

THE STORY OF ROSA PARKS

by Faith Ringgold ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1999

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Ringgold’s biography of Rosa Parks packs substantial material into a few pages, but with a light touch, and with the ring of authenticity that gives her act of weary resistance all the respect it deserves. Narrating the book is the bus that Parks took that morning 45 years ago; it recounts the signal events in Parks’s life to a young girl who boarded it to go to school. A decent amount of the material will probably be new to children, for Parks is so intimately associated with the Montgomery Bus Boycott that her work with the NAACP before the bus incident is often overlooked, as is her later role as a community activist in Detroit with Congressman John Conyers. Ringgold, through the bus, also informs readers of Parks’s youth in rural Alabama, where Klansmen and nightriders struck fear into the lives of African-Americans. These experiences make her refusal to release her seat all the more courageous, for the consequences of resistance were not gentle. All the events are depicted in emotive naive artwork that underscores their truth; Ringgold delivers Parks’s story without hyperbole, but rather as a life lived with pride, conviction, and consequence. (Picture book/biography. 5-9)