A carefully designed book that brings the past and the hand-created objects of the past to full-blooded life.
Fourteen “one-of-a-kind” Colonial American objects are given stories of how and why they came to be.
Taking actual objects crafted in the 18th and 19th centuries in mostly the northern and eastern parts of the United States, Schaefer spins stories to give the objects historical context and life. Some objects have been well-documented and so the stories around them are factual, but others’ histories are more shrouded, so Schaefer has taken the liberty of imagining, using authentic details to the time period, their creations. Illustrator Stadtlander matches these stories with primitive gouache paintings that evoke the work of the limners of the era and are full of rich, saturated colors, incorporating appropriate details and creating an authentic atmosphere with their style. Adding to the Colonial Americana look is the Eric Sloane–like display type used for headings and the onomatopoeic words (which cleverly mimic the sounds of the objects’ creations). Except for those depicted in the stories of a tin box crafted by a freed slave in Virginia in order to carry his freedom papers and of a bandolier bag crafted by an unknown Ojibwe, all people illustrated are white. The objects run the gamut, including a circa-1850 scrimshaw pie crimper, an embroidery sampler from 1798, and a terrestrial globe from 1810.
A carefully designed book that brings the past and the hand-created objects of the past to full-blooded life. (author’s note, further information) (Informational picture book. 6-12)Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7433-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though occasionally heavy-handed, this debut offers a vivid glimpse of the 1960s South through the eyes of a spirited girl...
The closing of her favorite swimming pool opens 11-year-old Gloriana Hemphill’s eyes to the ugliness of racism in a small Mississippi town in 1964.
Glory can’t believe it… the Hanging Moss Community Pool is closing right before her July Fourth birthday. Not only that, she finds out the closure’s not for the claimed repairs needed, but so Negroes can’t swim there. Tensions have been building since “Freedom Workers” from the North started shaking up status quo, and Glory finds herself embroiled in it when her new, white friend from Ohio boldly drinks from the “Colored Only” fountain. The Hemphills’ African-American maid, Emma, a mother figure to Glory and her sister Jesslyn, tells her, “Don’t be worrying about what you can’t fix, Glory honey.” But Glory does, becoming an activist herself when she writes an indignant letter to the newspaper likening “hateful prejudice” to “dog doo” that makes her preacher papa proud. When she’s not saving the world, reading Nancy Drew or eating Dreamsicles, Glory shares the heartache of being the kid sister of a preoccupied teenager, friendship gone awry and the terrible cost of blabbing people’s secrets… mostly in a humorously sassy first-person voice.
Though occasionally heavy-handed, this debut offers a vivid glimpse of the 1960s South through the eyes of a spirited girl who takes a stand. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-33180-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This 2015 New Visions Award winner offers a complex narrative and inspires readers to check their privilege to address...
Although Kelkar’s debut novel takes place in colonial India in the 1940s, when Indian citizens were fighting for independence from British rule, it is uncannily timely: 10-year old Anjali grapples with issues of social justice in many of the same ways young people are today.
When Anjali’s mother quits her job to become a freedom fighter, Anjali is reluctant to join the struggle, as it means she will have to eschew her decorated skirts and wear home-spun khadi (hand-woven cotton) instead, inviting the mockery of her school nemeses. But as her relationship with her mother evolves, her experience of and commitment to activism change as well. When her mother is imprisoned and commences a hunger strike, Anjali continues her work and begins to unlearn her prejudices. According to an author’s note, Kelkar was inspired by the biography of her great-grandmother Anasuyabai Kale, and the tale is enriched by the author’s proximity to the subject matter and access to primary sources. Kelkar also complicates Western impressions of Mohandas K. “Mahatma” Gandhi—Anjali realizes that Gandhi is flawed—and introduces readers to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, a figure rarely mentioned in texts for young people in the United States but who is best known for campaigning against social discrimination of Dalits, or members of India’s lower castes.
This 2015 New Visions Award winner offers a complex narrative and inspires readers to check their privilege to address ongoing injustices. (Historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62014-356-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Tu Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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