An informative portrait of an activist and advocate whose accomplishments are still evident today.
Why do we all owe Frances Perkins a thank you?
Framed with the questions “How many years will it be until you turn sixty-two?” and “What year will that be?” this straightforward selection covers the accomplishments of workers rights advocate Frances Perkins, from her fight for safe and fair treatment of working men, women, and children to her Great Depression–era achievements as FDR’s Secretary of Labor. The detailed artwork effectively portrays the world in which she lived and the situations she sought to improve. It’s noted that her education was unusual for a woman of her time and that she was the first American woman to serve in a presidential Cabinet, though the text stops short of providing an explicit description of the position of other women of the time. The childhood influence of various family members is addressed while her husband and child are briefly referenced (the mental illness that affected both is not), and her same-sex relationship goes unmentioned. What ultimately emerges is an engaging portrayal of a dedicated and influential woman who strove to improve the lives of others through various reforms, all succinctly explained, and the text returns to the initial questions, showing how Social Security is relevant to all. Perkins and those around her are depicted as white with few exceptions, but a closing scene set in the present day includes a multiracial and multiethnic gathering of people celebrating her legacy.
An informative portrait of an activist and advocate whose accomplishments are still evident today. (author's note, online resources, bibliography, source notes) (Picture book/biography. 6-10)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68263-136-2
Page Count: 36
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: June 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2020
Blandly laudatory.
The iconic animator introduces young readers to each “happy place” in his life.
The tally begins with his childhood home in Marceline, Missouri, and climaxes with Disneyland (carefully designed to be “the happiest place on Earth”), but the account really centers on finding his true happy place, not on a map but in drawing. In sketching out his early flubs and later rocket to the top, the fictive narrator gives Ub Iwerks and other Disney studio workers a nod (leaving his labor disputes with them unmentioned) and squeezes in quick references to his animated films, from Steamboat Willie to Winnie the Pooh (sans Fantasia and Song of the South). Eliopoulos incorporates stills from the films into his cartoon illustrations and, characteristically for this series, depicts Disney as a caricature, trademark mustache in place on outsized head even in childhood years and child sized even as an adult. Human figures default to white, with occasional people of color in crowd scenes and (ahistorically) in the animation studio. One unidentified animator builds up the role-modeling with an observation that Walt and Mickey were really the same (“Both fearless; both resourceful”). An assertion toward the end—“So when do you stop being a child? When you stop dreaming”—muddles the overall follow-your-bliss message. A timeline to the EPCOT Center’s 1982 opening offers photos of the man with select associates, rodent and otherwise. An additional series entry, I Am Marie Curie, publishes simultaneously, featuring a gowned, toddler-sized version of the groundbreaking physicist accepting her two Nobel prizes.
Blandly laudatory. (bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2875-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
A pivotal moment in a child’s life, at once stirring and authentically personal.
Before growing up to become a major figure in the civil rights movement, a boy finds a role model.
Buffing up a childhood tale told by her renowned father, Young Shelton describes how young Andrew saw scary men marching in his New Orleans neighborhood (“It sounded like they were yelling ‘Hi, Hitler!’ ”). In response to his questions, his father took him to see a newsreel of Jesse Owens (“a runner who looked like me”) triumphing in the 1936 Olympics. “Racism is a sickness,” his father tells him. “We’ve got to help folks like that.” How? “Well, you can start by just being the best person you can be,” his father replies. “It’s what you do that counts.” In James’ hazy chalk pastels, Andrew joins racially diverse playmates (including a White child with an Irish accent proudly displaying the nickel he got from his aunt as a bribe to stop playing with “those Colored boys”) in tag and other games, playing catch with his dad, sitting in the midst of a cheering crowd in the local theater’s segregated balcony, and finally visualizing himself pelting down a track alongside his new hero—“head up, back straight, eyes focused,” as a thematically repeated line has it, on the finish line. An afterword by Young Shelton explains that she retold this story, told to her many times growing up, drawing from conversations with Young and from her own research; family photos are also included. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A pivotal moment in a child’s life, at once stirring and authentically personal. (illustrator’s note) (Autobiographical picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-545-55465-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
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