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PLYMOUTH ROCKS!

Name: PLYMOUTH ROCKS!
Author: Jane Yolen
ISBN: 978-1-58089-685-6

THE STONE-COLD TRUTH

by Jane Yolen ; illustrated by Sam Streed ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 8, 2020

The narrative isn’t substantial enough to sustain the needed counternarrative.

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Plymouth Rock is a great big liar. Fortunately, the googly-eyed, sentient hunk of granite has a fact checker, a bespectacled brown-skinned person with a very active red pen. Rock narrates in verse, informing readers of its glacial origins, the local wildlife, its Native neighbors, the arrival of English settlers, and the myths that gradually arose around it. As the rock versifies, the fact checker busily marks up Streed’s cartoon spreads. “Hold on a minute!” reads one note on a fulsome description of how “the tribes” met the settlers “with a great burst of friendship, food, community.” Another vigorously circled note reads, “Native people did greet the colonists and later shared food with them, but that is NOT the whole story.” It’s a clever device, allowing Rock to pontificate with corrective annotations to set the record straight, but unfortunately, Rock’s story (as opposed to the story of the humans around it) is not interesting enough to sustain 32 pages. In fact, it’s something of a snooze (it was moved, dropped, broken, chipped away at, be-plaqued, and literally enshrined). It’s critical that readers learn that “settlers didn’t just ‘find’ a new world, they colonized it” and that “the Native people…did not consider their world new,” but this may not be the best vehicle. The narrative isn’t substantial enough to sustain the needed counternarrative. (bibliography) (Informational picture book. 5-8)

Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-58089-685-6

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Charlesbridge

Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HISTORY

- BOOK REVIEW
TOO MANY GOLEMS
by Jane Yolen ; illustrated by Maya Shleifer

- BOOK REVIEW
QUIET AS MUD
by Jane Yolen ; illustrated by Nicole Wong

- BOOK REVIEW
EENY AND HER SISTERS
by Jane Yolen ; illustrated by Kathryn Brown

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BEFORE SHE WAS HARRIET

by Lesa Cline-Ransome ; illustrated by James E. Ransome ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 2017

A picture book more than worthy of sharing the shelf with Alan Schroeder and Jerry Pinkney’s Minty (1996) and Carole Boston...

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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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | CHILDREN'S HISTORY

- BOOK REVIEW
ONE BIG OPEN SKY
by Lesa Cline-Ransome

- BOOK REVIEW
FIGHTING WITH LOVE
by Lesa Cline-Ransome ; illustrated by James E. Ransome

- BOOK REVIEW
LOUD AND PROUD
by Lesa Cline-Ransome ; illustrated by Kaylani Juanita

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ROSA PARKS

From the Little People, BIG DREAMS series

by Lisbeth Kaiser ; illustrated by Marta Antelo ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 7, 2017

It’s a bit sketchy of historical detail, but it’s coherent, inspirational, and engaging without indulging in rapturous...

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A first introduction to the iconic civil rights activist.

“She was very little and very brave, and she always tried to do what was right.” Without many names or any dates, Kaiser traces Parks’ life and career from childhood to later fights for “fair schools, jobs, and houses for black people” as well as “voting rights, women’s rights and the rights of people in prison.” Though her refusal to change seats and the ensuing bus boycott are misleadingly presented as spontaneous acts of protest, young readers will come away with a clear picture of her worth as a role model. Though recognizable thanks to the large wire-rimmed glasses Parks sports from the outset as she marches confidently through Antelo’s stylized illustrations, she looks childlike throughout (as characteristic of this series), and her skin is unrealistically darkened to match the most common shade visible on other African-American figures. In her co-published Emmeline Pankhurst (illustrated by Ana Sanfelippo), Kaiser likewise simplistically implies that Great Britain led the way in granting universal women’s suffrage but highlights her subject’s courageous quest for justice, and Isabel Sánchez Vegara caps her profile of Audrey Hepburn (illustrated by Amaia Arrazola) with the moot but laudable claim that “helping people across the globe” (all of whom in the pictures are dark-skinned children) made Hepburn “happier than acting or dancing ever had.” All three titles end with photographs and timelines over more-detailed recaps plus at least one lead to further information.

It’s a bit sketchy of historical detail, but it’s coherent, inspirational, and engaging without indulging in rapturous flights of hyperbole. (Picture book/biography. 5-7)