Light as air, sneakily earnest, chock-full of worthy silliness: “Be like cheese (or bacon) and make everything you touch...
A buoyant young YouTube celebrity’s experiences and outlook spawn 240 pages of uplift.
It’s all hung on a 100-point (!) program for awesomeness that begins with “Put down your phone” and ends with “Start writing on a page and then lose track of…” (and is helpfully repeated at the end of the book as a checklist). This patchwork assemblage of slogans, photos, recipes, instructions, side projects, short interviews with dozens of activists, and banter with co-author/producer/brother-in-law Montague boogies along as energetically as its (now) 11-year-old frontman. The irrepressible Novak was propelled to viral fame by the 2012 video “Pep Talk” (included in transcription, with new cartoon illustrations). He lights up his subsequent encounters with fellow celebrities from President Barack Obama and Beyoncé to Justin Timberlake and Timberlake’s grandma—as well as such bright if less-visible luminaries as the founders of a beauty pageant for special needs participants and “Make a Stand,” a lemonade-based anti–child-slavery initiative. Blending generalities with specific actions, the life advice runs to upbeat witticisms like “Don’t sweat the small stuff. Life is short and deodorant is expensive”; “Don’t be in a party. Be a party”; “High five your dentist”; and “Practice the art of the unexpected burrito.” It’s organizationally overwhelming, with a design aesthetic that seems to spurn consistency across more than four pages.
Light as air, sneakily earnest, chock-full of worthy silliness: “Be like cheese (or bacon) and make everything you touch better.” (Self-help. 9-13)Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-235868-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Clotted with facts, it barely scratches the surface when it comes to immunological details or ethical issues.
Historical background for readers hazy on the whys and wherefores of vaccines.
Polinsky traces the development of vaccines from 16th-century reports of inoculation against the “speckled monster” of smallpox in what is described as merely “Asia” to the release in 2020 of vaccines for Covid-19. The narrative is dense, injected with names, dates, and scientific terms. Unfortunately, it’s already somewhat dated and turns notably skimpy when it comes to describing how the Covid-19 vaccines were developed. More disturbingly, although the author comes down hard on the author of a since-discredited 1998 claim that certain vaccines cause autism, she notes without justification or comment that Lady Montagu and even Jonas Salk tried out vaccines on their own children and that researchers mass-cultured the polio virus in “tissue from human embryos.” Figures, White or light-skinned, stand in static poses uttering wooden declamations (“Daniel Oliver, my boy, you have just received the first vaccine in American history!”). Ginevra cuts a few corners, pairing the writer’s blithe assurances about how safe the treatments are to multiple views of children being stuck, scratched, or bandaged. In one disquieting scene, we see polio victims in iron lungs as bodiless heads. Readers concerned about viral diseases and their treatment (who isn’t these days?) will come away somewhat better informed—but hardly soothed. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Clotted with facts, it barely scratches the surface when it comes to immunological details or ethical issues. (glossary, multimedia resource list, index) (Informational picture book. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2022
ISBN: 1-7284-4872-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Graphic Universe
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
Inspiring examples for younger would-be world-changers.
Stevenson expands her 2019 roster of Kid Activists with profiles of 20 more advocates for political, social, and environmental causes.
Except for Benazir Bhutto, John Lewis, and Audre Lorde, all of the role models here are alive, and some, like environmental activist Greta Thunberg (born in 2003), #1000BlackGirlBooks founder Marley Dias (born in 2005) and Little Miss Flint Mari Copeny (born in 2007), are still relatively young. With some notable, if humanizing, exceptions—Al Gore’s memories of tossing water balloons off a hotel rooftop, for instance, or Shonda Rhimes’ petrifying first driving lesson—the 16 longer entries and four single-page spotlights are weighted toward childhood experiences that informed or directly led to later concerns and achievements, from Kamala Harris shouting “Fweedom!” from her stroller at a civil rights demonstration to Ai Weiwei watching his father’s library burn on the orders of the Red Guard. All but four subjects are people of color, most are North American, and several, including trans actor Elliot Page, are queer. Steinfeld’s neatly drawn illustrations include many scenes of smiling figures in forthright stances as well as some moments of difficulty and distress; Stevenson mentions instances of violence and bullying often enough to counter any false impressions that activism doesn’t have its risks.
Inspiring examples for younger would-be world-changers. (further reading, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-68369-301-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
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