Strap Buckner was one of the original Old Three Hundred to settle Texas with Stephen Austin, and legend rose around him to compete with his serious size. He’d thump a welcoming hand on the back of a fella and send him sprawling. Here, Wooldridge (Wicked Jack, 1995, etc.) and Glass (Mountain Men, p. 659, etc.) concoct a truly larger-than-life character who wallops every man he meets, every time, always with “great grace,” if tinged with a touch of bombast and bravado. Wooldridge has an excellent way with words: “ ‘It is ever thus with a man of genius,’ he lamented. ‘To be misunderstood, shunned, avoided by the common folk of the world!’ ” This after his townspeople start to fade into the shadows whenever he appears. Glass depicts Strap in oafish counterpoint to Wooldridge’s windbaggery, with an unruly mop of red hair and a ponderous gut. Strap moves from town to town, ultimately to be circumvented every time, until his better side advises him to seek peace and forsake his genius to clobber. “But the devil never can let a man’s good resolve go unchallenged.” Soon Strap is hurling a dare to fight all comers—and readers are ready to see the boaster come down a peg or two. The Infernal Fiend takes up Strap’s offer—“He saw pride in Strap’s eyes and heard the echo of it in Strap’s boast”—and succeeds in taking the tar out of Strap. A robust and high-humored version of the Strap Buckner legend, full of the over-the-top yarning now associated with Texas. (author’s note, bibliography) (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2001
ISBN: 0-8234-1536-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An outstanding achievement and a life worthy of note.
A former slave fulfills his quest for an education and much more in this superbly designed tribute to an oft-maligned African-American educator and author.
The young Washington, who learned his letters from a spelling book his mother gave to him, hears about Hampton College in Virginia, over 500 miles away. With the help of neighbors who share their precious coins, he travels, mostly on foot, from West Virginia with hunger, cold and weariness as constant companions. Asim’s lyrical text transforms the journey into a spiritual awakening for a young man who had “a dream in his soul.” Collier is in brilliant Caldecott Honor style, using his signature watercolor paintings and cut-paper collage to incorporate elements from Booker’s life and visions into each illustration. A map route is a design on his shirt, and letters and words from the speller he cherished decorate the pages. Each tableau is beautifully composed and balanced with textured colors and patterns. The cover display type and the endpapers, which are taken from Webster’s American Spelling Book, embellish this ode to book learning. Washington’s was not a life filled with anger and fiery oratory. Rather, Asim and Collier laud his steadfast determination and lifelong dedication to learning.
An outstanding achievement and a life worthy of note. (additional facts, author’s note, illustrator’s note, bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 4-8)Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-316-08657-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In enjoying the art, readers will pick up some bits of history along the way.
Kalman’s narrator sees a man who reminds her of Abraham Lincoln and goes to the library to find out more about the 16th president in this appealingly childlike introduction.
She finds information about Lincoln’s family life, his education, how he dressed, his presidency and his death. She wonders what he thought about, and she offers information about his anti-slavery views and his meetings with Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass. Kalman’s artwork is the main attraction here, with appealing naive illustrations done in gouache. Each page offers visual treats in a Matisse-like palette, unusual for a biography of a president, but fun in their own right—images of various people and items related to the president, including pancakes, a vanilla cake, a whistle, apples and, toward the end, an ominous-looking gun facing a rocking chair with a top hat on the floor. In the compression necessary to the picture-book form, however, history is regrettably oversimplified. Lincoln did indeed hate slavery and did say, as the narrator states, “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong,” But to assert that “[t]he Northern states (the Union) believed that slavery should be abolished. And so they went to war,” is to offer children a not-quite-accurate version of history adults should be ready to contextualize.
In enjoying the art, readers will pick up some bits of history along the way. (notes, sources) (Picture book/biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-24039-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2011
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