A vibrant, life-affirming tribute to a chef and his city.
The third installment in the Food Heroes series presents Roy Choi and the Los Angeles street-food scene.
Breezy text and lively illustrations invite young readers and cooks into the world of the food revolution happening across the country. Locally sourced fresh produce and good cooking are what chef Roy Choi is all about. A formally trained chef who has worked in fancy restaurants, he decided to be a “street cook” serving “outsiders, low-riders, kids, teens, shufflers, and skateboarders.” Drawing on his South Korean roots and the many cultures of Los Angeles (where he was raised), Choi cooks the way his mother did, “the Korean way—by hand—briny and tangy kimchi, spicy bibimbap, scallion pancakes studded with oysters.” Early on, when Roy’s Kogi BBQ Truck made its rounds with its Mexican-Korean fusion, people said, “Korean guys can’t do tacos”—but Kogi tacos made Roy famous, and the double-page spread of an LA map with pinpointed locations of the trucks testifies to that. Though bordering on in-your-face at times, Man One’s graffiti-art style is the perfect complement to Choi’s cooking and the lively LA street scene. Readers who get hooked will want to read Choi’s L.A. Son: My Life, My City, My Food (2013).
A vibrant, life-affirming tribute to a chef and his city. (authors’ notes, illustrator’s note, bibliography, resources, biographies) (Picture book/biography. 5-10)Pub Date: May 16, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9836615-9-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Readers to Eaters
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A picture book more than worthy of sharing the shelf with Alan Schroeder and Jerry Pinkney’s Minty (1996) and Carole Boston...
A memorable, lyrical reverse-chronological walk through the life of an American icon.
In free verse, Cline-Ransome narrates the life of Harriet Tubman, starting and ending with a train ride Tubman takes as an old woman. “But before wrinkles formed / and her eyes failed,” Tubman could walk tirelessly under a starlit sky. Cline-Ransome then describes the array of roles Tubman played throughout her life, including suffragist, abolitionist, Union spy, and conductor on the Underground Railroad. By framing the story around a literal train ride, the Ransomes juxtapose the privilege of traveling by rail against Harriet’s earlier modes of travel, when she repeatedly ran for her life. Racism still abounds, however, for she rides in a segregated train. While the text introduces readers to the details of Tubman’s life, Ransome’s use of watercolor—such a striking departure from his oil illustrations in many of his other picture books—reveals Tubman’s humanity, determination, drive, and hope. Ransome’s lavishly detailed and expansive double-page spreads situate young readers in each time and place as the text takes them further into the past.
A picture book more than worthy of sharing the shelf with Alan Schroeder and Jerry Pinkney’s Minty (1996) and Carole Boston Weatherford and Kadir Nelson’s Moses (2006). (Picture book/biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2047-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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