Serving an earnest purpose with characteristic zaniness, Catrow (Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon, 2001, etc.) twice interprets the Constitution’s first sentence. First, a simple repeat of the words is accompanied by an explanatory gloss on each ringing phrase; then a series of full-bleed, neon-colored scenes lets three exuberant children and a springer spaniel act out its principles while organizing a backyard campout. The two are sandwiched between a personal foreword, in which the cartoonist describes his first encounter with the Constitution—“I remember thinking: MAN, why couldn’t the guys who wrote this just use regular English?”—while assuring younger readers that its radical ideas are not beyond their comprehension and, for the Preamble’s final words, a cinematic close in which the view pans away from the children, sleeping safely under parental eyes, toward distant horizons. As well as being an engaging way of removing barriers to understanding raised by the Constitution’s stylized language, this makes a first-class discussion starter for many of the ideas and issues it addresses. (Picture book. 7-12)
Pub Date: May 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-8037-2553-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2002
Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-44887-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
A pleasing new picture book looks at George Washington’s career through an agricultural lens. Sprinkling excerpts from his letters and diaries throughout to allow its subject to speak in his own voice, the narrative makes a convincing case for Washington’s place as the nation’s First Farmer. His innovations, in addition to applying the scientific method to compost, include a combination plow-tiller-harrow, the popularization of the mule and a two-level barn that put horses to work at threshing grain in any weather. Thomas integrates Washington’s military and political adventures into her account, making clear that it was his frustration as a farmer that caused him to join the revolutionary cause. Lane’s oil illustrations, while sometimes stiff, appropriately portray a man who was happiest when working the land. Backmatter includes a timeline, author’s notes on both Mount Vernon and Washington the slaveholder, resources for further exploration and a bibliography. (Picture book/biography. 8-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-59078-460-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2008
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