An eye-catching if incomplete treatment of the legend.
Boxing legend Muhammad Ali comes to life for young readers.
Close-up, in-your-face oil illustrations and a lively text design with plenty of onomatopoeia (“POW! POW! POW!”) and quotations from the champ give readers a sense of the life and style of the great Muhammad Ali. Action scenes from the famous bouts with Sonny Liston, George Foreman, and Leon Spinks open the volume, which then goes back to a famous pivotal event in his life, when his bicycle is stolen and Cassius Clay (as was his name then) becomes determined to find the thief and “whup him.” The policeman on the scene, Officer Joe Martin, suggests that Cassius learn to fight. The story continues in gyms, following Cassius’ training days, abruptly jumping to a single page that wraps up his career and another that comments on Ali’s public persona. This is slight treatment given that 10 pages are devoted to the bike scene. However, framing the story with an opening painting of a lone heavy bag and closing with a deserted boxing ring is visually effective. A two-page endnote on Ali’s life offers plenty of details that might have been effectively incorporated into the story itself. As it is, readers may well be sufficiently tantalized to seek out other, more complete picture-book treatments.
An eye-catching if incomplete treatment of the legend. (Picture book/biography. 3-7)Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-243016-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Lendroth brings the right ingredients, offering a tale that challenges gender stereotypes and showcases an intergenerational...
An exuberant young girl finds her match in taiko drumming.
A whirlwind of energy, Natsumi often hears the words, “Not so fast” or “hard” or “loud” from her family. When she worries her boisterous actions always lead to mistakes, her grandfather finds the perfect outlet: taiko. On stage, Natsumi pounds the large, barrel-shaped drums—their thundering boom an extension of her enthusiastic spirit. Like Kevin Henkes with his water pistol–toting Lilly, Lendroth offers a charming character who defies traditional gender associations. However, her choice to place this modern story in a “village” is interesting. Cultural festivals such as the one she describes are experienced by Japanese-Americans today, and the United States has a thriving taiko or kumidaiko scene, yet Americans do not typically refer to their small towns or rural locations as villages. Acknowledgement that the setting is in Japan in the tale’s initial setup would have been helpful, as it establishes an entirely different lens for readers. Digital art, made to look like marker drawings, are colored in a mostly pastel palette. Unfortunately, while the artist is capable of including more interest and detail in her illustrations, as in her Five Green and Speckled Frogs (2003), she fails to give these characters and setting the specificity she gave generic animals.
Lendroth brings the right ingredients, offering a tale that challenges gender stereotypes and showcases an intergenerational bond, but overall, it’s a disappointing execution to a promising start. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 13, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-399-17090-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A lively celebration of music and expressive dance.
The beat is all around her when a girl takes a walk in the park with her mother.
On a lovely summer day, a young African-American girl in a bright pink sundress and matching sneakers sees, smells, sings, claps and snaps her fingers to an internal rhythm. As a boom box plays its song and a drummer taps his beat, neighborhood children join her in an energetic, pulsating dance culminating in a rousing musical parade. Schofield-Morrison’s brief text has a shout-it-out element as each spread resounds with a two-word phrase: “I shook a rhythm with my hips. /SHAKE SHAKE”; “I tapped the rhythm with my toes. / TIP TAP.” Morrison’s full-bleed, textured oil paintings capture the joy of a mother and daughter in an urban park surrounded by musicians, food vendors and many exuberant children. Read this aloud with music playing loudly—not in the background. Morrison is a Coretta Scott King/New Talent Award winner, and this is a fine debut for his wife in their first collaboration.
A lively celebration of music and expressive dance. (Picture book. 3-6)Pub Date: June 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61963-178-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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