by Christy Mihaly ; illustrated by Manu Montoya ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2020
Staid but timely, valuable as a gateway to further study.
A simple explanation of the rights laid out in the First Amendment, with examples historical and otherwise showing them in operation.
Mihaly, an experienced lawyer and author of a nonfiction series on human rights, restates each constitutional right in plodding but easy-to-understand verse (“Freedom of assembly / means Americans can show— / with marches and with rallies— / what they want the world to know”), with each right allotted one to three double-page spreads. Dramatized tableaux with speech bubbles provide interpretation or context. George Washington responds to a Jewish questioner concerned about freedom of religion; readers meet Congressman Matthew Lyon, who was arrested in 1798 for bad-mouthing President John Adams (and reelected from jail); a fictive group of schoolchildren peaceably gathers to protest the planned closing of a local playground. In the interest of keeping it simple, she does veer into some gray areas; most notably, in an exchange between two children that consists entirely of “You can’t say that!” “Yes I can! It’s a FREE COUNTRY!” she implicitly leaves room for unprotected libel and hate speech. A prose closing section provides further information. Most of Montoya’s carefully individualized human figures are or look like children, even the historical ones, and she includes some characters with visible disabilities and people in religious dress in her racially diverse cast.
Staid but timely, valuable as a gateway to further study. (resource lists) (Informational picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: March 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8075-2441-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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by Amy Ehrlich illustrated by Wendell Minor ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 27, 2016
A simplistic treatment for an audience likely unfamiliar with its subject.
Ehrlich renders an admiring portrait of Cather, focusing on the relationship between her writing and the places she lived and visited.
Willa and family followed her grandparents from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883. Willa was lonely, but she had a pony and freedom to roam. When her father traded farming for real estate, the family moved to Red Cloud. She read keenly, enjoying adult friends, who "were more interesting than children and...talked to Willa in a serious and cultured way." During her freshman year at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, an essay’s publication changed Willa's path from doctor to writer. Cather worked at magazines in Pittsburgh and New York. The writer Sarah Orne Jewett urged her to focus on her own writing. Journeys to Europe, the American Southwest, back to Nebraska and Virginia—all resonated in her accomplished fiction. Ehrlich writes with little inflection, sometimes adopting Cather's viewpoint. The Civil War and slavery are briefly treated. (Cather's maternal grandparents were slaveholders.) Native Americans receive only incidental mentions: that Red Cloud is named for the Oglala Lakota chief and that, as children, Willa and her brothers had "imagined themselves in Indian country in the Southwest desert. What adventures they would have!" Minor's watercolor-and-gouache pictures depict bucolic prairie scenes and town and city life; meadowlarks appear frequently.
A simplistic treatment for an audience likely unfamiliar with its subject. (timeline, thumbnail biographies of American women writers of Cather's time, bibliography) (Biography. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-689-86573-2
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
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by Suzanne Slade ; illustrated by Alice Ratterree ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2017
An attractive volume introducing an important American to young readers.
Jane Addams’ life was dedicated to helping others.
Jane Addams knew how it felt to be sad, lonely, and in pain. Her mother died when Jane was 2, and Jane contracted spinal tuberculosis at age 4, leaving her with a crooked back and toes that pointed in. “She felt like the ugly duckling / in her storybook: / different, / unwanted, / hopeless.” So, when she rode into town with her father and saw the poverty other people faced—“the rundown shacks, / sad, hungry parents, / cold, barefoot children”—the beginnings of her social conscience were stirred. She got a good education, traveled throughout Europe, and committed herself to helping the poor. Toynbee Hall, a settlement house in London, inspired her to establish the now-famous Hull House in Chicago. At first Jane was beloved, the New York Evening Post even suggesting she run for president. But Addams became controversial for her peace efforts during World War I, and the FBI labeled her “the Most Dangerous Woman in America.” However, she went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Slade tells the purposively inspiring story with a poetic flair, and Ratterree’s pale, evocatively washed-out watercolor illustrations are richly detailed (though hands seem to be her nemesis as an artist). They make the most of the book’s oversize trim, giving space to the free-verse text. A “More about Dangerous Jane” section mostly retells the story, with a few new details added.
An attractive volume introducing an important American to young readers. (Picture book/biography. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-56145-913-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
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