Not of general interest to the intended audience.
The women of the Warli people of western India first produced wall murals, but now men commercially produce these designs on paper and canvases.
Focusing on quotidian activities, these paintings are highly recognizable due to their use of geometric shapes, including figures created with two triangles, one inverted above the other. White, rice-flour people, animals, trees, and symbols are traditionally painted on dark backgrounds made of red mud or cow dung. Jeong has skillfully created a series of paintings that look like the originals. She has taken a few liberties in doing one double-page spread with brown ink on a beige background and one illustration with a green background. Part of the Trade Winds series “featuring stories set in key periods of the history of economy and culture,” the book’s main attraction is the strong illustrations, which will probably appeal more to adults interested in folk art than young children. The simple text accompanying each spread is appropriate for children but often seems so generalized that it could almost describe any agricultural society. Troublingly, the book almost gives the impression that the Warli people no longer exist. The backmatter attempts to contextualize this culture within other agricultural societies but confuses rather than enlightens.
Not of general interest to the intended audience. (cultural, historical, and art-historical notes, glossary, timeline) (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5476-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
Good fun wrapped in a cracking piece of characterization and history.
A dramatic telling of Lindbergh’s flight from New York City to Paris, France.
Houran conveys readers to a time when flying was still a daredevil activity and aces such as René Fonck were international celebrities. Flying contests were common in the 1920s, and as the planes got better, so did the prizes. The Orteig Prize, named after a New York City hotelier who set the challenge, would pay $25,000 to the first flyer to make a nonstop journey from New York City to Paris. Lindbergh was a stuntman and a barnstormer before he decided to take a shot at the challenge. One of the beauties of Houran’s reconstruction of the event is that it brings Lindbergh’s feat into focus: He was not the first to fly across the Atlantic; he did not fly on a wing and a prayer but planned extensively; a number of other, more famous flyers were in the race, including Fonck and Richard E. Byrd, who had recently flown to the North Pole. She also tips her hat to Lindbergh’s tactical wizardry and keeps the tale not just at a high pitch (“He buckled his safety belt. He pulled on his flying helmet. He fit his goggles over his eyes”), but in a lather: “LINDBERGH! the crowd cried....The crowd lifted him above their heads. They bounced him along like a beach ball!”
Good fun wrapped in a cracking piece of characterization and history. (Nonfiction. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-385-38284-7
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
An excellent text to introduce nascent readers to Dr. King’s story.
A complex piece of history is told in simple language.
This nonfiction beginning reader highlights the role of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the March on Washington on Aug., 28, 1963. It also features a constellation of other activists who fought for African-Americans’ civil rights, some of whom the text names, such as gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, who often inspired Dr. King through song before he spoke, as at the march. Other activists appear only in the illustrations, and Comport leaves it to the reader to figure out who they are, such as the iconic image of Ruby Bridges being accompanied from William Frantz Elementary School by federal marshals in New Orleans and Rosa Parks sitting on a front bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama. Unlike Doreen Rappaport and Bryan Collier’s Martin’s Big Words (2001), this snapshot of Dr. King’s life does not include his assassination, but it also does not sugarcoat conflicts endemic to the civil rights movement. On one page, while a young black man waits to be served at a lunch counter, four young white men surround him in anger. On another, Dr. King sits thoughtfully behind jail bars. Comport’s artfully textured illustrations, rendered in muted colors, capture both the time period and the mood of these emotionally charged scenes well.
An excellent text to introduce nascent readers to Dr. King’s story. (author’s note) (Informational early reader. 6-9)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-101-93669-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
