Peaceful but forceful protest ended segregation in one Southern town.
The titular “seeds” are a metaphor for individual acts of nonviolence that led to desegregation in the city that is home to the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, a federally funded facility. In the early 1960s, blacks staged sit-ins at lunch counters, listened to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and, before Easter, boycotted local clothing stores and participated in a Blue Jean Sunday. Bass writes in the present tense with a conversational tone and divides her story by date from July 1962 through September 1963. She includes details that will resonate with children while also imparting an inspirational message, tinged with her own civic pride (she is a former resident of Huntsville), about community activism. Lewis’ watercolor art portrays street scenes and townspeople’s faces. His full-page portrait of a little black girl in ruffled white ankle socks, holding a paper outline of her feet, is the most telling and poignant. She wants a new pair of shoes but cannot try them on. It’s an unfortunately timely book, as Huntsville is still in the news with court cases challenging de facto school segregation.
A book that is as quietly inspiring as its subject. (author’s note, photographs, selected bibliography) (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 27, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6919-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S HISTORY
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BOOK REVIEW
A child who insists on having MORE of everything gets MORE than she can handle.
Demanding young Moxie Jo is delighted to discover that pushing the button on a stick she finds in the yard doubles anything she points to. Unfortunately, when she points to her puppy, Max, the button gets stuck—and in no time one dog has become two, then four, then eight, then….Readers familiar with the “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” or Tomie dePaola’s Strega Nona will know how this is going to go, and Masse obliges by filling up succeeding scenes with burgeoning hordes of cute yellow puppies enthusiastically making a shambles of the house. McKellar puts an arithmetical spin on the crisis—“The number of pups exponentially grew: / They each multiplied times a factor of 2!” When clumsy little brother Clark inadvertently intervenes, Moxie Jo is left wiser about her real needs (mostly). An appended section uses lemons to show how exponential doubling quickly leads to really big numbers. Stuart J. Murphy’s Double the Ducks (illustrated by Valeria Petrone, 2002) in the MathStart series explores doubling from a broader perspective and includes more backmatter to encourage further study, but this outing adds some messaging: Moxie Jo’s change of perspective may give children with sharing issues food for thought. She and her family are White; her friends are racially diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Doubles down on a basic math concept with a bit of character development. (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: July 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-101-93386-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Reinvention is the name of the game for two blobs of clay.
A blue-eyed gray blob and a brown-eyed brown blob sit side by side, unsure as to what’s going to happen next. The gray anticipates an adventure, while the brown appears apprehensive. A pair of hands descends, and soon, amid a flurry of squishing and prodding and poking and sculpting, a handsome gray wolf and a stately brown owl emerge. The hands disappear, leaving the friends to their own devices. The owl is pleased, but the wolf convinces it that the best is yet to come. An ear pulled here and an extra eye placed there, and before you can shake a carving stick, a spurt of frenetic self-exploration—expressed as a tangled black scribble—reveals a succession of smug hybrid beasts. After all, the opportunity to become a “pig-e-phant” doesn’t come around every day. But the sound of approaching footsteps panics the pair of Picassos. How are they going to “fix [them]selves” on time? Soon a hippopotamus and peacock are staring bug-eyed at a returning pair of astonished hands. The creative naiveté of the “clay mates” is perfectly captured by Petty’s feisty, spot-on dialogue: “This was your idea…and it was a BAD one.” Eldridge’s endearing sculpted images are photographed against the stark white background of an artist’s work table to great effect.
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted fun of their own . (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-30311-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES
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