by Greg Mortenson and Susan L. Roth and illustrated by Susan L. Roth ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 2009
In this distilled version of the inspirational adult bestseller—at least its first part—the children of a Pakistani mountain village describe in a collective voice how their lessons had been outside, written with sticks on the ground, until they sheltered a lost American stranger who returned later to build both a bridge and a school. Using a wide variety of patterned papers and fabrics, Roth creates collages crowded with color and detail, casting groups of smiling, dark-eyed villagers and their welcome guest against steep, stony mountains. Closing with a scrapbook of captioned color location photos and an artist’s note, this makes an effective discussion-starter for new and prereaders about waging peace. For middle readers, the adult title is also available in a version adapted by Sarah Thomson (Three Cups of Tea, $16.99, 978-0-8037-3392-3), which sometimes takes a patronizing tone (Mortenson, commenting on his hate mail: “’I expected something like this from an ignorant village mullah….’”) but also features both an update and a long interview with Mortenson’s 12-year-old activist daughter, Amira. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3058-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2008
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by Brad Meltzer ; illustrated by Christopher Eliopoulos ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2019
Blandly laudatory.
The iconic animator introduces young readers to each “happy place” in his life.
The tally begins with his childhood home in Marceline, Missouri, and climaxes with Disneyland (carefully designed to be “the happiest place on Earth”), but the account really centers on finding his true happy place, not on a map but in drawing. In sketching out his early flubs and later rocket to the top, the fictive narrator gives Ub Iwerks and other Disney studio workers a nod (leaving his labor disputes with them unmentioned) and squeezes in quick references to his animated films, from Steamboat Willie to Winnie the Pooh (sans Fantasia and Song of the South). Eliopoulos incorporates stills from the films into his cartoon illustrations and, characteristically for this series, depicts Disney as a caricature, trademark mustache in place on outsized head even in childhood years and child sized even as an adult. Human figures default to white, with occasional people of color in crowd scenes and (ahistorically) in the animation studio. One unidentified animator builds up the role-modeling with an observation that Walt and Mickey were really the same (“Both fearless; both resourceful”). An assertion toward the end—“So when do you stop being a child? When you stop dreaming”—muddles the overall follow-your-bliss message. A timeline to the EPCOT Center’s 1982 opening offers photos of the man with select associates, rodent and otherwise. An additional series entry, I Am Marie Curie, publishes simultaneously, featuring a gowned, toddler-sized version of the groundbreaking physicist accepting her two Nobel prizes.
Blandly laudatory. (bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2875-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
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by Brad Meltzer ; illustrated by Christopher Eliopoulos
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by Jennifer Dussling ; illustrated by Chin Ko ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 20, 2017
A succinct, edifying read, but don’t buy it for the pictures.
Abraham Lincoln’s ascent to the presidency is recounted in a fluid, easy-to-read biography for early readers.
Simple, direct sentences stress Lincoln’s humble upbringing, his honesty, and his devotion to acting with moral conviction. “Lincoln didn’t seem like a man who would be president one day. But he studied hard and became a lawyer. He cared about people and about justice.” Slavery and Lincoln’s signature achievement of emancipation are explained in broad yet defined, understandable analogies. “At that time, in the South, the law let white people own black people, just as they owned a house or a horse.” Readers are clearly given the president’s perspective through some documented memorable quotes from his own letters. “Lincoln did not like slavery. ‘If slavery is not wrong,’ he wrote to a friend ‘nothing is wrong.’ ” (The text does not clarify that this letter was written in 1865 and not before he ascended to the presidency, as implied by the book.) As the war goes on and Lincoln makes his decision to free the slaves in the “Southern states”—“a bold move”—Lincoln’s own words describe his thinking: “ ‘If my name ever goes into history,’ Lincoln said, ‘it will be for this act.’ ” A very basic timeline, which mentions the assassination unaddressed in the text, is followed by backmatter providing photographs, slightly more detailed historical information, and legacy. It’s a pity that the text is accompanied by unremarkable, rudimentary opaque paintings.
A succinct, edifying read, but don’t buy it for the pictures. (Informational early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-06-243256-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2017
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