A whimsical reimagining of an obscure historical event.
Eggers lightly fictionalizes a little-known true story of moving house (quite literally).
“Like all of the best stories, this takes place in Idaho.” Sometime in the 1870s, a prospector’s dog located evidence of silver, and soon the Minnie Moore Mine was born. Not long after, the mine was sold to Henry Miller, making it Miller’s Minnie Moore Mine. After marrying and building a gigantic house (the Millers’ Minnie Moore Mine Mansion), Mr. Miller died. His widow, left with her son and the house and conned out of most of her money by a “crooked banker,” purchased pigs to raise and sell, but the folks in town had ordinances about that. Rather than leave her house behind, Mrs. Miller concocted a wild scheme (that actually worked) to move the house out of town. Readers with a low excrement tolerance may wish to steer clear, as Sardà takes a naughty pride in seeing how many bowel movements she can work into the earth-toned piggy spreads. Eggers, meanwhile, delights in language, pulling a very natural humor out of an already silly tale. Though the tale is set in 19th-century Idaho, mention is not made of displaced Indigenous populations, and the entire cast presents as White. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A whimsical reimagining of an obscure historical event. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9781536215885
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
A timely if unpolished entry in the Little People, BIG DREAMS series.
A first introduction to the greatest scientist of the past half-century.
Hawking makes a worthy but not an easy subject for an elementary-grade profile, as the likelihood that younger audiences aren’t really up on the ins and outs of quantum theory or gravitational singularities limits the author’s tally of his scientific contributions to a mention (sans meaningful context) of “Hawking radiation.” His other claim to fame, as an exemplar of the triumph of mind over physical disability, is far easier to grasp. For this, Hunt’s cartoon-style illustrations of a smiling scientist with idealized features on an oversized head help reinforce the notion that, as Hawking put it, “However difficult life may seem, there is always something that you can do and succeed at.” He leans on a cane before a wall of mathematical notations, takes his children for a spin on his wheelchair, and lectures to a rapt audience. The author (or an uncredited translator) uses some inept phrasing—a bald observation that eventually he “lost his voice and found a new one with a robotic drawl” can only leave readers confused, for instance. Illustrations of crowds place the white scientist among diverse gatherings. A closing note offers photos and a bit more detail plus a trio of titles for older readers.
A timely if unpolished entry in the Little People, BIG DREAMS series. (Picture book/biography. 5-7)Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-78603-333-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
Laughably undercontextualized and not particularly interesting, despite the decapitations.
The ill-fated queen of France takes center stage in a beginner’s biography.
As a subject of a biography for preschoolers and early-elementary readers, Marie Antoinette, a woman who is known for the probably apocryphal “Let them eat cake!” and for her execution by guillotine during the French Revolution, is a curious choice. Berenger (not a person but a French media collective) introduces her as an Austrian princess married off to a French prince as part of a peace negotiation. At 18, she is crowned at Reims with her husband, Louis XVI, and she proceeds to “insist on the finest of everything….She hired hairdressers to change her hairstyle every day!” But “meanwhile, many people in France were poor and starving,” so “they decided to overthrow their king and queen!” The hopelessly simplistic account proceeds through the royal couple’s imprisonment, Louis’ execution (framed by the guillotine, he looks worriedly out at readers), the confiscation of her son, and her trial (depicted) and execution (not). Backmatter includes further information, which mostly muddies the waters rather than clearing them, introducing Robespierre and the Reign of Terror in a three-sentence thumbnail and presenting a complicated map of Europe that may be of more use to the volume’s original French readers than to North American ones. The bobbleheaded cartoons, all white, look by turns happy, anxious, and angry; they are at all times vapid. Companion title Buddha is equally inadequate.
Laughably undercontextualized and not particularly interesting, despite the decapitations. (Picture book/biography. 4-7)Pub Date: March 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-16882-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
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