bookshelf

FREEDOM SUMMER

Name: FREEDOM SUMMER
Author: Deborah Wiles
ISBN: 0-689-83016-5

by Deborah Wiles & illustrated by Jerome Lagarrigue ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 2001

bookshelf

Wiles draws on memories of her childhood summers in Mississippi in her first picture book, a slice-of-life story about Joe, a Caucasian boy, and his best friend, John Henry, an African-American boy whose mother works as a housekeeper for Joe’s family. The setting is the Deep South in the summer of 1964, the period called Freedom Summer for its wide-ranging social changes following passage of the Civil Rights Act. Joe and John Henry have spent all their summers together, working around the rampant prejudice of the era and maintaining their friendship even though they can’t swim in the public pool together or walk into the local store to buy a pair of ice pops. When the new law takes effect, the boys race together to the public pool only to find it being filled in with asphalt by city workers. John Henry’s hurt and shame ring true in the text, but Joe’s precocious understanding of the situation outstrips his age. (“I want to see this town with John Henry’s eyes.”) An author’s note at the beginning of the book describes her experiences and the atmosphere in her own hometown during this era, when some white business owners preferred to close down rather than open their doors to African-Americans. Younger children will need this background explanation to understand the story’s underlying layers of meaning, or the filling-in of the swimming pool will seem like a mindless bureaucratic blunder rather than concrete prejudice in action. Teachers and parents could use this book as a quiet but powerful introduction to the prejudice experienced by many Americans, and of course the book is a natural to pair with the story of another, more-famous John Henry. Vibrant full-page paintings by talented French-born artist Lagarrigue capture both the palpable heat of southern summer days and the warmth of the boys’ friendship. (Picture book. 6-12)

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-689-83016-5

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
SIMPLE THANKS
by Deborah Wiles ; illustrated by Bao Luu

- BOOK REVIEW
BOBBY
by Deborah Wiles ; illustrated by Tatyana Fazlalizadeh

- BOOK REVIEW
WE ARE ALL UNDER ONE WIDE SKY
by Deborah Wiles ; illustrated by Andrea Stegmaier

bookshelf

THE MONKEY WHO WANTED THE MOON

by Anne Mangan & illustrated by Catherine Walters ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 2001

bookshelf

This preachy, pedestrian cautionary tale isn’t going to convince many children to change their ways. Simia, a young monkey, wants everything. But the flower she grabs on a tree branch turns out to be attached to a thorny cactus, a beautiful orange object is a snarling jaguar, a zigzag shape is a snake that “uncoiled itself and shot into the air” (say what?), a “coconut” turns out to be a wasp’s nest, and so on. Later, Simia picks a flower that wilts, snatches a pretty stone from playmates and throws it into the lake, then almost falls out of a tree reaching for the moon. Mother monkey hammers the lesson home: “ ‘Some things are for yourself, some things are for others, and some things . . . are for everyone to share. You don’t have to own things to enjoy them.’ ” Instantly, Simia is satisfied. Right. Walters (Are You There, Baby Bear?, 1999) sets her little monkey into a series of lush, if static, forest scenes. An also-ran next to such similarly themed books as Marcia Brown’s How, Hippo (1969) and Kate Banks’s Baboon (1997). (Picture book. 6-8)

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001

ISBN: 1-56656-376-3

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Crocodile/Interlink

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2000

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

bookshelf

LITTLE GOLD STAR

A SPANISH AMERICAN CINDERELLA TALE

by Robert D. San Souci & illustrated by Sergio Martinez ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 31, 2000

bookshelf

This tender version of the Cinderella story comes from the American Southwest. A widow and her two daughters pressure the shepherd Tomás into marriage, and while he spends more and more time with the flocks, his daughter Teresa gets more and more of the chores. When Tomás brings Teresa the gift of a lamb, her stepmother kills it and orders her to wash the fleece. A fish steals the fleece, but Blessed Mary appears to her, and asks her to care for Joseph and the Child for a day. Teresa is rewarded for her kindness by the return of the fleece, and the Virgin touches her forehead so a gold star appears there. When Teresa returns home, the stepsisters are fierce with jealousy, mocking her with the name Estrellita de Oro (Little Gold Star), but when each of them in turn tries for the fleece and the gold star, they fail the kindness test and get horns and donkey’s ears instead. Still, when Don Miguel gives a fine party, the sisters vie for his attention, mantillas over their protuberances. As is to be expected he has eyes only for Teresa, who is then sent home by her stepmother. Don Miguel finds her through the offices of their cat, but the stepmother sets three impossible tasks for Teresa before she will give permission for the marriage. Mary blesses Teresa again, the tasks completed, Teresa and Don Miguel marry, and even the stepsisters learn kindness until their donkey ears and horns disappear. There’s a wonderful translucence to Martínez’s watercolors: light seems to shine through the roses in the Virgin’s path, the candles at Don Miguel’s, even the stepsisters’ black lace mantillas. Little Gold Star has a lovely face, and the stepmother and sisters are properly grumpy. In a year full of Cinderella variations, this one is a welcome addition. (Fairy tale. 6-9)