A glowing portrait of a groundbreaking jurist, or at least her public persona.
A celebration of the U.S. Supreme Court’s newest associate justice and first ever Black woman.
As befitting a tribute to a potential role model who has only recently become a national figure (though Ketanji Brown Jackson’s legal career began in 1996), the focus here is less on her specific achievements and decisions than early influences—particularly her father (“ ‘You can do anything. You can be anything,’ he told his bright-eyed brown daughter”)—and insights into her character as she went from high school class president to U.S. district judge on the way to taking a seat on our highest court. With reasonable fidelity, Holt’s stiffly composed group scenes compress major personal events in her life and depict her facing a jury and then later senatorial grilling with equal calmness, once with knitting in her lap and again with her family and supportive “sister-friends” sitting behind her, before closing with a final, formal close-up of a confident Jackson smiling widely. If the relatively massive dump of online news stories listed in the bibliography at the end won’t be much use to younger readers, it should serve older ones curious about the details of her background and legal record. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A glowing portrait of a groundbreaking jurist, or at least her public persona. (Picture-book biography. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781338885293
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The story is both poignant and meaningful, but the simplification does the audience a disservice.
The Children of Willesden Lane (2003), Golabek and Cohen’s story of Golabek’s mother’s life as a young Austrian refugee in London during World War II, is adapted (for the third time) for a picture-book audience.
In this picture-book biography, Lisa Jura, a young Viennese Jew, learns she cannot continue piano lessons due to the Anschluss. Her parents decide to send her on a Kindertransport to England, her mother urging her to “hold on to your music. It will be your best friend.” Upon her arrival in England, the book sends her immediately to the hostel on Willesden Lane, omitting the real-life Jura’s initial relocation in the country. The arc of the rest of the story, with Lisa auditioning for a place at the Royal Academy of Music with support from her hostel friends and a successful debut after the war ends, is largely similar to that told in the books for older readers, but the abundant, unsourced dialogue and detail changes make this telling suspect. Her two sisters are both alive and heartwarmingly present at her London debut in Lisa of Willesden Lane (2021), the chapter-book version of the story, but they don’t exist in this book outside of a family photo accompanying an aftermatter note from Golabek. The soft-edged illustrations ably complement this text, although Lisa—depicted with pale skin amid an apparently all-White cast—does not seem to age until her piano debut takes place after the war’s end. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-17-inch double-page spreads viewed at 42.1% of actual size.)
The story is both poignant and meaningful, but the simplification does the audience a disservice. (historical note) (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-316-46313-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Despite choruses praising Ride’s persistence, her life is inexplicably portrayed as lacking struggle.
Sally Ride: from tennis-playing schoolgirl through astronaut and educator to entrepreneur.
Sally Ride stars in this entry to the chapter-book series spun off from Chelsea Clinton and Alexandra Boiger’s picture book She Persisted (2017). Long before she becomes the first woman to go to space, Sally is an athlete, a White girl born in California in 1951. She’s a tennis whiz but an inconsistent scholar, attending a prestigious private school on an athletic scholarship. Though the narrative a little ostentatiously tells readers that “Sally persisted,” the youth presented here—a child who rolls her eyes at boring teachers, a college student who drops out to play tennis, an excellent tennis player who “just did not enjoy” the effort of becoming a professional—shows the opposite. Sexism is alluded to, but no barriers are portrayed as blocking young Sally herself. Though her amazing achievements aren’t downplayed, the groundbreaking Sally Ride, in this telling, becomes simply someone who applied for a job and excelled once she liked what she was doing. Sally’s partner, Tam O’Shaughnessy, is mentioned as such, but the text avoids using any pronouns for O’Shaughnessy, which, along with her gender-neutral name, may leave many young readers ignorant that Ride silently broke sexuality barriers as well.
Despite choruses praising Ride’s persistence, her life is inexplicably portrayed as lacking struggle. (reading list, websites) (Biography. 7-9)Pub Date: March 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-11592-3
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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