by Arisa White & Laura Atkins ; illustrated by Laura Freeman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 5, 2019
Difficult but necessary, inclusive and respectful, this book does a beautiful job of telling truths about our history and...
The true story of an enslaved woman finding freedom and creating a home and community.
This book is “a creative act of repairing the historical record, of imagining Biddy Mason’s life based on all the information and stories we could gather,” explain the co-authors in a preface. Scenes are written in free verse. Each poem is followed by information about Biddy’s world: slavery and midwifery, plantation life and economy, migration, the struggle for freedom, and life as a free black person. Born into slavery and separated from her mother, Biddy learns about healing plants from the woman who takes her in. She is later sold away and forced to migrate across the country. In Utah and then in California, where slavery is illegal, Biddy encounters Native people and free blacks. Instead of following her master to Texas, where slavery is legal, Biddy manages to resist in court and gain her freedom. Her story doesn’t end there. Her later life as a healer, homesteader, and community builder fills the last third of the book, ending on a note of hope. Poems are illustrated, and nonfiction sections include archival photographs, vocabulary words, timelines, and questions encouraging readers to reflect on their own lives. The cruelty of slavery, including brutal whippings and rape, is presented in the scenes and explained in the notes.
Difficult but necessary, inclusive and respectful, this book does a beautiful job of telling truths about our history and how we construct it. (source notes, bibliography, index) (Blended nonfiction/historical fiction. 9-14)Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59714-403-2
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Heyday
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
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by Pedro Martín ; illustrated by Pedro Martín ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2023
A retro yet timeless story of family and identity.
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Martín brings his successful Mexikid Stories online comic series to print.
Living in California’s Central Coast as a first-generation Mexican American, Pedro (or the “American-style” Peter) struggles to find his place. As an American kid growing up in the 1970s, he loves Star Wars and Happy Days but dislikes the way his five oldest siblings, who were born in Mexico, make him feel less Mexican just because he and the three other younger siblings were born after his parents immigrated to the U.S. to work picking strawberries. A family trip to Jalisco to bring their abuelito back to California to live with them presents Pedro with an opportunity to get in touch with his roots and learn more about the places his family calls home. Told from Pedro’s perspective, the panels read as a stream-of-consciousness travelogue as he regales readers with his adventures from the road. Along the way, Pedro has fresh encounters with Mexican culture and experiences some unexpected side quests. Full of humor, heart, and a decent amount of gross-out moments, Martín’s coming-of-age memoir hits all the right notes. Though the family’s travels took place decades ago, the struggles with establishing identity, especially as a child of immigrants whose identity straddles two cultures, feel as current as ever. The vibrant, action-packed panels offer plentiful details for readers to pore over, from scenes of crowded family chaos to the sights of Mexico.
A retro yet timeless story of family and identity. (family photos, author’s note) (Graphic memoir. 9-14)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9780593462287
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
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by Kathleen Krull & illustrated by Boris Kulikov ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2006
Hot on the heels of the well-received Leonardo da Vinci (2005) comes another agreeably chatty entry in the Giants of Science series. Here the pioneering physicist is revealed as undeniably brilliant, but also cantankerous, mean-spirited, paranoid and possibly depressive. Newton’s youth and annus mirabilis receive respectful treatment, the solitude enforced by family estrangement and then the plague seen as critical to the development of his thoughtful, methodical approach. His subsequent squabbles with the rest of the scientific community—he refrained from publishing one treatise until his rival was dead—further support the image of Newton as a scientific lone wolf. Krull’s colloquial treatment sketches Newton’s advances in clearly understandable terms without bogging the text down with detailed explanations. A final chapter on “His Impact” places him squarely in the pantheon of great thinkers, arguing that both his insistence on the scientific method and his theories of physics have informed all subsequent scientific thought. A bibliography, web site and index round out the volume; the lack of detail on the use of sources is regrettable in an otherwise solid offering for middle-grade students. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-05921-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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