by Carole Boston Weatherford ; illustrated by Frank Morrison ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 11, 2023
Spells out reasons to vow N-E-V-E-R A-G-A-I-N.
A champion Midwestern speller experiences discrimination at the 1936 National Spelling Bee.
MacNolia Cox was neither the first African American child to win a national spelling contest (1908) nor the next (2021)—but she was the first even to win a spot as a finalist in all the intervening decades and, Weatherford suggests, could well have won except for some rule-bending by the judges. Using a call-and-response cadence (“Can you spell dedication? / D-E-D-I-C-A-T-I-O-N”), the author pays tribute to the Akron, Ohio, eighth grader’s indomitable spirit and focus as well as her love of words while recording the public excitement she caused by winning her school and then citywide bees. With a teacher, a reporter, and her mother, MacNolia then traveled to Washington, D.C., where she experienced segregation (even on stage, in the accompanying, pointedly wordless, picture) but “nailed word after word.” She didn’t win the championship but proved something important by her example: “That was MacNolia’s triumph.” Her slender figure glows with character in Morrison’s illustrations, too, where she pores studiously through dictionaries here, poses with celebrities like Joe Louis and Fats Waller there, waves gravely to a cheering crowd as she boards a train for the nation’s capital, and afterward returns to her hometown in graceful, silent dignity. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Spells out reasons to vow N-E-V-E-R A-G-A-I-N. (foreword, afterward, select bibliography) (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: April 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781536215540
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
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by Chris Paul ; illustrated by Courtney Lovett ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 10, 2023
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
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by Brad Meltzer ; illustrated by Christopher Eliopoulos ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2019
Blandly laudatory.
The iconic animator introduces young readers to each “happy place” in his life.
The tally begins with his childhood home in Marceline, Missouri, and climaxes with Disneyland (carefully designed to be “the happiest place on Earth”), but the account really centers on finding his true happy place, not on a map but in drawing. In sketching out his early flubs and later rocket to the top, the fictive narrator gives Ub Iwerks and other Disney studio workers a nod (leaving his labor disputes with them unmentioned) and squeezes in quick references to his animated films, from Steamboat Willie to Winnie the Pooh (sans Fantasia and Song of the South). Eliopoulos incorporates stills from the films into his cartoon illustrations and, characteristically for this series, depicts Disney as a caricature, trademark mustache in place on outsized head even in childhood years and child sized even as an adult. Human figures default to white, with occasional people of color in crowd scenes and (ahistorically) in the animation studio. One unidentified animator builds up the role-modeling with an observation that Walt and Mickey were really the same (“Both fearless; both resourceful”). An assertion toward the end—“So when do you stop being a child? When you stop dreaming”—muddles the overall follow-your-bliss message. A timeline to the EPCOT Center’s 1982 opening offers photos of the man with select associates, rodent and otherwise. An additional series entry, I Am Marie Curie, publishes simultaneously, featuring a gowned, toddler-sized version of the groundbreaking physicist accepting her two Nobel prizes.
Blandly laudatory. (bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2875-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
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