Sure to be enjoyed, this is an engaging study of one of our Founding Father’s great legacies.
This unusual picture-book biography fosters a new understanding of Thomas Jefferson’s life as viewed through his love of books and its impact on our burgeoning nation.
The opening quote from Jefferson sets the tone: “I cannot live without books.” The narrative replicates the rhythm of a conversation as it provides numerous examples of his love of books. Clever spreads combine expansive full-bleed images and individual, framed pen-and-ink–and-watercolor illustrations, plus vignettes amplifying points made in the text. Throughout, fact boxes shaped like open books scattered across the pages supply additional details. A scholar from childhood, Jefferson devoured his father’s library and then, at school, learned to read in several languages. He cultivated personal libraries covering many subjects while living at his parents’ plantation and again at Monticello. Ultimately, this examination highlights Jefferson’s role in ensuring that the Library of Congress held a viable collection: first as president, when he supported the Library of Congress, and later, when the collection was burned during the War of 1812, by offering his books to them. The piece closes on the fascinating note that the Library of Congress owns more than 155 million items and adds around 11,500 each day. An author’s note provides further information, including a discussion of Jefferson as slaveholder.
Sure to be enjoyed, this is an engaging study of one of our Founding Father’s great legacies. (selected bibliography, source notes) (Picture book/biography. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59078-932-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2013
A worthy message delivered with a generous dose of inclusivity.
Sharing books brings children from multiple backgrounds together in this companion to Stacey’s Extraordinary Words (2021).
Again lightly burnishing actual childhood memories, voting rights activist and former gubernatorial candidate Abrams recalls reaching out as a young book lover to Julie, a new Vietnamese classmate shy about reading in English. Choosing books to read and discuss together on weekly excursions to the school’s library, the two are soon joined by enough other children from Gambia, South Korea, and elsewhere that their beaming librarian, Mr. McCormick, who is dark-skinned, sets up an after-school club. Later, Julie adds some give and take to their friendship by helping Stacey overcome her own reluctance to join the other children on the playground. Though views of the library seen through a faint golden haze flecked with stars go a little over the top (school librarians may disagree), Thomas fills the space with animated, bright-eyed young faces clustering intimately together over books and rendered in various shades beneath a range of hairstyles and head coverings. The author underscores the diversity of the cast by slipping scattered comments in Spanish, Wolof, and other languages into the dialogue and, after extolling throughout the power of books and stories to make new friends as well as open imaginations to new experiences and identities, brings all of her themes together in an afterword capped by an excellent list of recommended picture books. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A worthy message delivered with a generous dose of inclusivity. (Picture-book memoir. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-327185-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Disgusting and futile medical practices are always a pleasure to contemplate. Beccia, following closely in the spirit of The Raucous Royals (2008)—dry-witted artwork, conversational text, engaging historical detective work—asks readers to guess which “cures” may actually have helped a handful of ailments. Take a nasty cough, for example: Should you take a heaping helping of caterpillar fungus, frog soup or cherry bark? Common good sense will lead readers to wag their heads no when it comes to sprinkling mummy powder on a wound or drilling a hole in your head to relieve a headache, though some counterintuitive measures will come as a surprise success: spider web for an open wound, frog slime for a sore throat, moldy bread to treat a cut. The author provides intriguing background information on the cures—where they arose, why they were thought to be efficacious—and pulls more than one gem out of the nastiness, such as the property of silver to kill bacteria, giving birth to a familiar expression: “In the Middle Ages, wealthy-born babies sucked on silver spoons to protect against plague....” (note, bibliography) (Informational picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-547-22570-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2010
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