Ideal for girls with professional dreams of their own.
Women can’t conduct orchestras, they said, but Antonia Brico did.
Antonia Brico (1902-1989) ignored the advice of other musicians; she dreamed of being a conductor and eventually made a career of it, though she never achieved a full-time professional job. Cast out by her foster parents in high school, Brico put herself through college by playing the piano and reclaimed her birth name. A sponsor paid her way to Germany, where she became the first American to graduate from the conducting school at the Berlin State Academy of Music. She had guest-conducting jobs all over Europe but left to escape the Nazis. With the support of Eleanor Roosevelt, she formed a women’s professional orchestra in New York, which performed successfully, but New York wasn’t ready for a mixed-gender orchestra. Moving to Denver, she spent the rest of her life there, still guest-conducting all over, teaching piano, and serving as the regular conductor for a semiprofessional Denver orchestra eventually renamed the Brico Symphony. This straightforward biography of a woman who paved the way for today’s women conductors (still few in number) is the second in a promising series of titles about Amazing Women. The author performed under Brico’s baton as a teenager. Chronologically organized, attractively illustrated, carefully sourced, and accompanied by a helpful timeline, this also includes minibiographies of three other early female conductors as well as three from the present day.
Ideal for girls with professional dreams of their own. (Biography. 7-12)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-73422-591-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Penny Candy
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Misleading title aside, a serviceable addition to the growing shelf of presidential picture books.
Reader, beware; this isn’t exactly a story about Abraham Lincoln’s storied stovepipe hat.
Before he became an American legend and the leader of the free world, Lincoln practiced law in Springfield, Illinois, where he struggled to stay organized. His creative solution to records management was to stow the most pressing documents inside his now-famous hat. With this colorful anecdote as a brief preamble, Brenner proceeds to deliver a jam-packed overview of Lincoln’s celebrated legal career leading up to his presidency. The text rapidly moves between recitations of Lincoln’s memorable courtroom cases and exploits as a country lawyer; unfortunately, the pacing sometimes sags. Although historians debate Lincoln’s legacy, this profile presents a largely idealized portrait of the 16th president, upholding his legacy as the Great Emancipator; one double-spread illustration shows Lincoln smiling paternalistically at a group of disturbingly expressionless Black people. To Brenner’s credit, the text does briefly acknowledge the ongoing Colonial displacement of Indigenous peoples that was well underway during the president’s lifetime as well as Lincoln’s “middle position on slavery.” Children should read this work with an adult who can scaffold their exploration of the complex subject matter. The illustrations alternate between color and black-and-white palettes and are rendered, fittingly, in a midcentury-modern style that both hearkens to the past and looks toward the present day.
Misleading title aside, a serviceable addition to the growing shelf of presidential picture books. (afterword, sources, notes) (Picture book biography. 7-12)Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-525-64717-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2021
Inspiration for nature-loving children.
If you’re a child who collects nature’s treasures, you’re in good company.
This cleverly conceived and appealingly executed title addresses young readers directly, connecting their noticing and collecting habits to those of others who continued to observe, collect, and organize in adulthood. Montgomery introduces a grandly diverse array of nine naturalists, researchers, and explorers from Maria Sibylla Merian, who studied butterflies in the 17th century, to Bonnie Lei, whose present-day research focuses on sea-life conservation. Three are people of color, and the majority are female. The young George Washington Carver collected seed pods; deep-sea explorer William Beebe collected birds’ eggs; and young Jane Goodall put worms under her pillow! Other profiles include Charles Darwin, tree-canopy explorer Margaret Lowman, herpetologist Diego Cisneros-Heredia, and fossil hunter Mary Anning. The vignettes from childhood are engaging, well paced, and smoothly told. Short introductions to the adult scientists follow, in a smaller font. In her author’s note, the writer introduces the concept of naturalist intelligence. Lechuga’s friendly illustrations feature the brown-skinned girl with Afro puffs and overflowing pockets shown on the cover as well as the scientists as children, then as adults, in appropriate times and places. The backmatter includes more about the grown-up scientists and the author’s own sensible “rules for collecting,” which involve respect for nature, the people she lives with, and herself (safety). The illustrator reminds readers that habits of observation are something she also shares with scientists.
Inspiration for nature-loving children. (field guides, selected bibliography) (Informational picture book. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-62354-122-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
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