Jean Fritz tells us in a preface that this memoir of her childhood years in China is true to real events and feelings, though fictionalized in the sense that exact conversations are invented and details from a longer period telescoped into the two years from October, 1925, when she was ten, to September, 1927, when she and her parents were finally settled at her grandparents' Pennsylvania farm. The poverty of the coolies, her nursemaid's bound feet, and other background details are woven into the more personal story of Jean, a missionary's child, who counts the days until she'll see her American home, repeating to herself Sir Walter Scott's famous "Breathes there the man. . . ." She tells of visits with other American children in China; of a fearful trip when the family was carried by coolies up a steep, slippery mountain path to the town where they would summer, and where Jean's sister would be born and die; and then of the growing disruption and danger as the revolution came nearer. Conversion to communism caused the family's cook to turn rude and cut his long fingernails, and Jean feared for a while that he would poison their food. Then there was the "narrow squeak" (her father's term) when the family, returning home from the summer, was surrounded by hostile coolies with knives; they were saved by local coolies whom Jean's father had befriended. In Pennsylvania at last, Jean worries about whether she 11 pass at school for a "regular" American; but her aunt helps her get a dress and a hair bob, and despite a painful run-in with the hated Palmer method of handwriting, she acquires a boyfriend the first day and comes home euphoric. Fritz's telling never rises above the pedestrian; she does less justice to her own story than to those of the American history figures she has made real and human for children. Nevertheless the combination of author interest and unusual background should assure an interested readership.
Pub Date: Oct. 8, 1982
ISBN: 0399209336
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1982
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A lyrical coming-of-age story in picture-book form that begs to be shared.
Former Poet Laureate Herrera encourages his young readers to imagine all they might be in his new picture book.
Herrera’s free verse tells his own story, starting as a young boy who loves the plants and animals he finds outdoors in the California fields and is then thrust into the barren, concrete city. In the city he begins to learn to read and write, learning English and discovering a love for words and the way ink flows “like tiny rivers” across the page as he applies pen to paper. Words soon become sentences, poems, lyrics, and a means of escape. This love of the word ultimately leads him to make writing his vocation and to become the first Chicano Poet Laureate of the United States, an honor Herrera received in 2015. Through this story of hardship to success, expressed in a series of conditional statements that all begin “If I,” Herrera implores his readers to “imagine what you could do.” Castillo’s ink and foam monoprint illustrations are a tender accompaniment to Herrera’s verse, the black lines of her illustrations flowing across the page in rhythm with the author’s poetry. Together this makes for a charming read-aloud for groups or a child snuggled in a lap.
A lyrical coming-of-age story in picture-book form that begs to be shared. (Picture book/memoir. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-7636-9052-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A beautifully designed book that will resonate with children and the adults who wisely share it with them.
An inspirational ode to the life of the great South African leader by an award-winning author and illustrator.
Mandela’s has been a monumental life, a fact made clear on the front cover, which features an imposing, full-page portrait. The title is on the rear cover. His family gave him the Xhosa name Rolihlahla, but his schoolteacher called him Nelson. Later, he was sent to study with village elders who told him stories about his beautiful and fertile land, which was conquered by European settlers with more powerful weapons. Then came apartheid, and his protests, rallies and legal work for the cause of racial equality led to nearly 30 years of imprisonment followed at last by freedom for Mandela and for all South Africans. “The ancestors, / The people, / The world, / Celebrated.” Nelson’s writing is spare, poetic, and grounded in empathy and admiration. His oil paintings on birch plywood are muscular and powerful. Dramatic moments are captured in shifting perspectives; a whites-only beach is seen through a wide-angle lens, while faces behind bars and faces beaming in final victory are masterfully portrayed in close-up.
A beautifully designed book that will resonate with children and the adults who wisely share it with them. (author’s note, bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-178374-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
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