A gentle, accessible take on resilience.
A tree survives the Holocaust, though most of the children who cared for it don’t.
It’s winter in Terezin, the Czechoslovakian propaganda camp with which the Nazis tricked the credulous Red Cross into believing their treatment of Jews was humane. Here, children are allowed to attend school, and one teacher, Irma Lauscher, has the children plant a smuggled-in maple sapling. Miraculously, the children keep the tree alive in the camp, even as they themselves weaken or die. Art and text combine for an honest yet optimistic and age-appropriate portrayal of a difficult topic. When they first see the tree, the children are still round-faced if ragged, their pale, large-eyed faces capable of joy. As the war continues and the tree grows, the children’s faces grow wearier, their bodies huddled against cold and despair. Many of the children vanish entirely; although only the author’s note clarifies that these children have been murdered in Auschwitz, a foreboding spread of a deportation train (“taken away on trains to a place that was even worse”) nonetheless makes clear that their fates are dire. Despite the mass murder, the tree survives—as does Irma. In 2021, a cutting from the tree was planted in New York City. Now the somber hues, punctuated by reds, give way to a hopeful green surrounding the racially diverse children of New York—round-faced and joyful.
A gentle, accessible take on resilience. (sources) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780593617120
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Rocky Pond Books/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
A picture book more than worthy of sharing the shelf with Alan Schroeder and Jerry Pinkney’s Minty (1996) and Carole Boston...
A memorable, lyrical reverse-chronological walk through the life of an American icon.
In free verse, Cline-Ransome narrates the life of Harriet Tubman, starting and ending with a train ride Tubman takes as an old woman. “But before wrinkles formed / and her eyes failed,” Tubman could walk tirelessly under a starlit sky. Cline-Ransome then describes the array of roles Tubman played throughout her life, including suffragist, abolitionist, Union spy, and conductor on the Underground Railroad. By framing the story around a literal train ride, the Ransomes juxtapose the privilege of traveling by rail against Harriet’s earlier modes of travel, when she repeatedly ran for her life. Racism still abounds, however, for she rides in a segregated train. While the text introduces readers to the details of Tubman’s life, Ransome’s use of watercolor—such a striking departure from his oil illustrations in many of his other picture books—reveals Tubman’s humanity, determination, drive, and hope. Ransome’s lavishly detailed and expansive double-page spreads situate young readers in each time and place as the text takes them further into the past.
A picture book more than worthy of sharing the shelf with Alan Schroeder and Jerry Pinkney’s Minty (1996) and Carole Boston Weatherford and Kadir Nelson’s Moses (2006). (Picture book/biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2047-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
It’s a bit sketchy of historical detail, but it’s coherent, inspirational, and engaging without indulging in rapturous...
A first introduction to the iconic civil rights activist.
“She was very little and very brave, and she always tried to do what was right.” Without many names or any dates, Kaiser traces Parks’ life and career from childhood to later fights for “fair schools, jobs, and houses for black people” as well as “voting rights, women’s rights and the rights of people in prison.” Though her refusal to change seats and the ensuing bus boycott are misleadingly presented as spontaneous acts of protest, young readers will come away with a clear picture of her worth as a role model. Though recognizable thanks to the large wire-rimmed glasses Parks sports from the outset as she marches confidently through Antelo’s stylized illustrations, she looks childlike throughout (as characteristic of this series), and her skin is unrealistically darkened to match the most common shade visible on other African-American figures. In her co-published Emmeline Pankhurst (illustrated by Ana Sanfelippo), Kaiser likewise simplistically implies that Great Britain led the way in granting universal women’s suffrage but highlights her subject’s courageous quest for justice, and Isabel Sánchez Vegara caps her profile of Audrey Hepburn (illustrated by Amaia Arrazola) with the moot but laudable claim that “helping people across the globe” (all of whom in the pictures are dark-skinned children) made Hepburn “happier than acting or dancing ever had.” All three titles end with photographs and timelines over more-detailed recaps plus at least one lead to further information.
It’s a bit sketchy of historical detail, but it’s coherent, inspirational, and engaging without indulging in rapturous flights of hyperbole. (Picture book/biography. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-78603-018-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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