by Jayne Pettit ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1996
In this dull entry in the Rainbow Biography series, Pettit (A Time to Fight Back, 1996, etc.) sets out to tell the story of a ``remarkable woman who has survived the pain of abandonment, the anguish of child abuse, and the hatred of racial intolerance.'' The abandonment, abuse, and hatred are dutifully chronicled from the time the girl who would become Maya, age three, and her four-year- old brother are shipped off to live in Stamps, Arkansas—Klan country—to her rape in St. Louis at age eight by her mother's boyfriend, date rape, teen pregnancy, and two marriages. Angelou becomes a poet, performer, and civil rights activist and, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, turns her harsh early life into art. Incredibly, not a word of her poetry or prose appears in this perfunctory rendering. (Biography. 8-11)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-525-67518-3
Page Count: 70
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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by Ann Whitford Paul ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1999
Prose poems celebrate the feats of young heroines, some of them famous, and some not as well-known. Paul (Hello Toes! Hello Feet!, 1998, etc.) recounts moments in the lives of women such as Rachel Carson, Amelia Earhart, and Wilma Rudolph; these moments don’t necessarily reflect what made them famous as much as they are pivotal events in their youth that influenced the direction of their lives. For Earhart, it was sliding down the roof of the tool shed in a home-made roller coaster: “It’s like flying!” For Rudolph, it was the struggle to learn to walk without her foot brace. Other women, such as Violet Sheehy, who rescued her family from a fire in Hinckley, Minnesota, or Harriet Hanson, a union supporter in the fabric mills of Massachusetts, are celebrated for their brave decisions made under extreme duress. Steirnagle’s sweeping paintings powerfully exude the strength of character exhibited by these young women. A commemorative book, that honors both quiet and noisy acts of heroism. (Picture book/poetry. 6-9)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201477-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
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by Ann Whitford Paul ; illustrated by David Walker
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by Ann Whitford Paul ; illustrated by Jay Fleck
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by Ann Whitford Paul ; illustrated by David Walker
by Faith Ringgold ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1999
Ringgold’s biography of Rosa Parks packs substantial material into a few pages, but with a light touch, and with the ring of authenticity that gives her act of weary resistance all the respect it deserves. Narrating the book is the bus that Parks took that morning 45 years ago; it recounts the signal events in Parks’s life to a young girl who boarded it to go to school. A decent amount of the material will probably be new to children, for Parks is so intimately associated with the Montgomery Bus Boycott that her work with the NAACP before the bus incident is often overlooked, as is her later role as a community activist in Detroit with Congressman John Conyers. Ringgold, through the bus, also informs readers of Parks’s youth in rural Alabama, where Klansmen and nightriders struck fear into the lives of African-Americans. These experiences make her refusal to release her seat all the more courageous, for the consequences of resistance were not gentle. All the events are depicted in emotive naive artwork that underscores their truth; Ringgold delivers Parks’s story without hyperbole, but rather as a life lived with pride, conviction, and consequence. (Picture book/biography. 5-9)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-689-81892-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
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by Faith Ringgold ; illustrated by Faith Ringgold
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by Gwendolyn Brooks & illustrated by Faith Ringgold
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