by Charles R. Smith Jr. & illustrated by Bryan Collier ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 2007
Smith’s most ambitious project to date celebrates the life of Muhammad Ali, from his Olympic gold medal in 1960, renowned fights with Sonny Liston and Joe Frazier, his personal battle with Parkinson’s syndrome to the dramatic lighting of the Olympic torch at the 1996 Atlanta games. The attractive, large-format design and the rap-inspired poems, arranged in 12 rounds like a boxing match, will attract readers. However, the combination of busy and dense layout, long poems with complicated rhymes and rhythms and a large amount of biographical information conveyed in the poems makes the volume daunting, even for experienced readers. Collier’s watercolor-and-collage illustrations range from spectacular to bizarre, demonstrating—as in his illustrations for Doreen Rappaport’s John’s Secret Dreams (2004)—a tendency for his work to be distractingly symbolic. A challenging, sometimes beautiful tribute to a modern-day hero—attractive, impressive and dramatic, but not a knockout. (timeline) (Poetry/nonfiction. 10+)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7636-1692-2
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
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by Charles R. Smith Jr. ; illustrated by Leo Espinosa
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by Saundra Mitchell ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 10, 2016
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats.
Why should grown-ups get all the historical, scientific, athletic, cinematic, and artistic glory?
Choosing exemplars from both past and present, Mitchell includes but goes well beyond Alexander the Great, Anne Frank, and like usual suspects to introduce a host of lesser-known luminaries. These include Shapur II, who was formally crowned king of Persia before he was born, Indian dancer/professional architect Sheila Sri Prakash, transgender spokesperson Jazz Jennings, inventor Param Jaggi, and an international host of other teen or preteen activists and prodigies. The individual portraits range from one paragraph to several pages in length, and they are interspersed with group tributes to, for instance, the Nazi-resisting “Swingkinder,” the striking New York City newsboys, and the marchers of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade. Mitchell even offers would-be villains a role model in Elagabalus, “boy emperor of Rome,” though she notes that he, at least, came to an awful end: “Then, then! They dumped his remains in the Tiber River, to be nommed by fish for all eternity.” The entries are arranged in no evident order, and though the backmatter includes multiple booklists, a personality quiz, a glossary, and even a quick Braille primer (with Braille jokes to decode), there is no index. Still, for readers whose fires need lighting, there’s motivational kindling on nearly every page.
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats. (finished illustrations not seen) (Collective biography. 10-13)Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-751813-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Puffin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
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by Crystal Allen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 22, 2011
This stands out for its unusual setting and smooth integration of friendship and family concerns. (Fiction. 10-14)
Sucked into "business" with a crooked classmate, bowling fanatic Lamar Washington makes good money faking his skills, but when a disruptive prank reveals his new friend Billy’s duplicity, he realizes how wrong it was to aim to be “the smoothest baddest dude” in Coffin, Ind.
This refreshing first novel is told in the first person with plenty of snappy dialogue by a smart African-American middle-schooler whose asthma has kept him out of the usual sports and whose older brother, a basketball star, consistently taunts him. Lamar’s new friendship threatens both a longstanding one and a promising new relationship with a girl. Tension mounts as Lamar is drawn further into an unsavory gambling world, realizing that his cheating is wrong but thrilled to have the cash to buy a Bubba Sanders bowling ball. A final, seriously physical fight with his brother leads to climactic arrests. The drab rigidity of Camp Turnaround, where Billy is incarcerated, contrasts with the excitement of the bowling alley Lamar loves. His grounding and community service seem appropriate. His understanding of the consequences of his prank fire alarm, both for his brother and for his basketball-mad small town, comes slowly and realistically, and the solution of his family issues is satisfying.
This stands out for its unusual setting and smooth integration of friendship and family concerns. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-199272-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 10, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2011
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by Crystal Allen ; illustrated by Eda Kaban
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