Somber and inspirational.
The Children’s Poet Laureate salutes 15 men and women, including one child, who spoke out and acted for equality and liberty, several at the cost of their lives.
The names are familiar: Mohandas Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Jackie Robinson, Harvey Milk, Josh Gibson, Aung San Suu Kyi. They are less well-known: Mitsuye Endo, Helen Zia, Sylvia Mendez, Dennis James Banks, Muhammad Yunus. They are wives or mothers: Coretta Scott King, Mamie Carthan Till. One is a child, Sylvia Mendez, who wanted to attend a whites-only school in California. Three died too young on a dark road in Mississippi: Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Cheney. All receive a stirring page of rhymed verse accompanied by a single- or double-page spread painting created by one of five artists: Jim Burke, R. Gregory Christie, Tonya Engel, John Parra and Meilo So. So’s bright colors against a white background speak of affirmation and pride for Kyi, Zia and Milk, while Burke’s somber palette evokes the fear of the three civil rights workers and the “nightmare world” of Mandela’s imprisonment. Parra decorates his pages with details from the lives of Mendez, Yunus and Endo. From political activists to an astronaut and from baseball legends to a typist in a World War II internment camp, they raised their voices and sometimes their fists.
Somber and inspirational. (thumbnail sketches) (Poetry. 10-16)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4521-0119-4
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
This useful but uneven volume summarizes the legend of the Trojan War, then describes the archaeological excavations at Hisarlik, the Turkish site believed to have been Troy. After a brief (though ponderous) introduction comes a graceful 20-page retelling of how, according to Homer, the Greeks fought at Troy. Elegant red-and-black illustrations every few pages echo Greek vases, part of the overall attractive book design. Readers must then switch gears for the final 35 pages, illustrated with a handful of photographs, which describe the main excavations, from Heinrich Schliemann in 1870 through several more scientific expeditions up to recent times. The authors, a writer and a classical scholar, review hypotheses about the site and occasionally weave in anecdotes, but the overall scheme is chronological and the writing straightforward, without the spark of Laura Amy Schlitz’s biography, The Hero Schliemann (2006). However, readers may find the recap of The Iliad enjoyable and the rest, including a timeline and recommended websites, helpful for reports. Given the source material, it should be better. (bibliography, source notes, index) (Nonfiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-58089-326-8
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A sampler worth sampling, despite pallid illustrations and a roster entirely made up of dead or veteran poets.
Kitted out—as usual for volumes in the Poetry for Young People series—with biographical headers and an outstanding introductory overview, the 33 short selections follow a generally chronological course. Atypically, the editors steer largely clear of explicit racial or religious themes in their selections. Phillis Wheatley’s pointed “Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain, / May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train,” and James Weldon Johnson’s “The Creation” stand as exceptions. Along with contributions from James Baldwin and Richard Wright (both better known for their prose), notable additions to the standard African-American poetic canon include 19th-century writers George Moses Horton and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. More-recent meditations from Melvin Dixon (b. 1950) and Elizabeth Alexander (b. 1962) also help to freshen up the collection. Sadly, what vivacity these poems retain is sucked dry by Barbour’s monotonous successions of sad, big-eyed faces and drably colored collages. Well-intentioned, and at least as valuable for its editorial additions as its lyric contents. (index) (Poetry. 10-13)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4027-1689-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: Dec. 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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