Despite awkwardness, this is a welcome window into an important American life
Pants: Women were not supposed to wear them.
Mary Walker not only got her medical degree in 1855, but found it much easier to do her work dressed smartly in men’s trousers and tailored jacket. She was not accepted in the Union Army at first, but as an unpaid hospital volunteer, she tended the Civil War sick and wounded in Washington, D.C., and field hospitals. She was finally commissioned in late 1863, then captured and imprisoned by the Confederates. She was exchanged for a Confederate officer, and in 1866, she was given the Medal of Honor, the first and only woman to receive it. Harness tries valiantly to work this complicated story into one comprehensible for the early grades, but it makes for some difficult phrasing. Calling her, as some did, a “pesky camp follower” has very negative implications that adults, at least, will get. “Many Americans, especially in the South, firmly believed that enslaving people from Africa was a normal thing to do,” is an awkward encapsulation of the reason for the Civil War. Molinari’s images are richly colored and drawn in an old-fashioned but very compatible style and do a lot toward fleshing out the text.
Despite awkwardness, this is a welcome window into an important American life . (Picture book/biography. 7-9)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8075-4990-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
The legions of fans who over the years have enjoyed dePaola’s autobiographical picture books will welcome this longer gathering of reminiscences. Writing in an authentically childlike voice, he describes watching the new house his father was building go up despite a succession of disasters, from a brush fire to the hurricane of 1938. Meanwhile, he also introduces family, friends, and neighbors, adds Nana Fall River to his already well-known Nana Upstairs and Nana Downstairs, remembers his first day of school (“ ‘ When do we learn to read?’ I asked. ‘Oh, we don’t learn how to read in kindergarten. We learn to read next year, in first grade.’ ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll be back next year.’ And I walked right out of school.”), recalls holidays, and explains his indignation when the plot of Disney’s “Snow White” doesn’t match the story he knows. Generously illustrated with vignettes and larger scenes, this cheery, well-knit narrative proves that an old dog can learn new tricks, and learn them surpassingly well. (Autobiography. 7-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-399-23246-X
Page Count: 58
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1999
Beguiling art props up a profile that reads like a school report.
A quick life of the great fantasist is given wings by allusive painted illustrations.
Aimed at children who know The Hobbit but aren’t quite up to tackling it on their own, the narrative takes “Ronald” from birth in South Africa through transplantation to England, experiences in World War I and postwar life up to the publication of Lord of the Rings. The selection of detail isn’t particularly discriminating. Intriguing information such as the famous anecdote about how the first line of The Hobbit popped into his head out of nowhere or notes about Gandalf’s origin and a relative’s farm called “Bag’s End” is interspersed with eye-glazing references to childhood changes of address or the formation of the Tolkien Society. The art provides a more studied route into the author’s imagination and achievements. Prettily rendered in soft lines and muted colors, it’s framed as a winding board game decorated with thematic words, depictions of elves and dragons, views of the author and his family at various ages, simple codes and highlighted scenes, all capped by facing portraits of Tolkien (“I am in fact a hobbit in all but size”) and Bilbo Baggins.
Beguiling art props up a profile that reads like a school report. (timeline, bibliography, notes) (Picture book/biography. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8234-1951-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2011
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