Uplifting with hope and ablaze with joyous colors!
Despite her era’s racial segregation and prejudice, African American artist and art teacher Alma Thomas blazed a colorful trail.
Growing up in the early 1900s, young Alma was drawn to “the sparkling colors of nature” around her family’s large Victorian house in Columbus, Georgia. As the story recounts, she spurned the domestic pursuits her sisters embraced, longing instead “to make things, / things she could hold.” So, she started creating pottery using clay from the banks of the stream behind her childhood home. Due to racial injustice, the Thomas children weren’t allowed to attend the schools, museums, or library in their town; nevertheless, their home was filled with books and learning, and creativity as well. When Alma was 15, her family moved to Washington, D.C., where she studied art in college and then taught art at a local school. The story goes on to describe Thomas’ tireless efforts to increase access to art for the Black students in her community and her many groundbreaking achievements both as an educator and as an artist, including being the first Black woman to have a solo museum exhibition in America. The text achieves a fine balance of evocative lyricism and straightforward exposition. Wise’s vibrant, eye-catching illustrations contain echoes of Thomas’ signature abstract style, with its colorful mosaiclike patterns and tessellated brush strokes. Most characters are Black; a few illustrations include diverse representation.
Uplifting with hope and ablaze with joyous colors! (author's note, illustrator's note, timeline, sources, references) (Picture-book biography. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-302189-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40.
From two Nobel Peace Prize winners, an invitation to look past sadness and loneliness to the joy that surrounds us.
Bobbing in the wake of 2016’s heavyweight Book of Joy (2016), this brief but buoyant address to young readers offers an earnest insight: “If you just focus on the thing that is making / you sad, then the sadness is all you see. / But if you look around, you will / see that joy is everywhere.” López expands the simply delivered proposal in fresh and lyrical ways—beginning with paired scenes of the authors as solitary children growing up in very different circumstances on (as they put it) “opposite sides of the world,” then meeting as young friends bonded by streams of rainbow bunting and going on to share their exuberantly hued joy with a group of dancers diverse in terms of age, race, culture, and locale while urging readers to do the same. Though on the whole this comes off as a bit bland (the banter and hilarity that characterized the authors’ recorded interchanges are absent here) and their advice just to look away from the sad things may seem facile in view of what too many children are inescapably faced with, still, it’s hard to imagine anyone in the world more qualified to deliver such a message than these two. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-48423-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
Engaging, well-chosen images and a clear, coherent text illuminate the importance of empathy for the world’s inhabitants.
Large color photographs (occasionally composed of montages) and accessible, simple text highlight global similarities and differences, always focusing on our universal connections.
While child readers may not recognize Manzano, the Puerto Rican actress who played Maria on Sesame Street, adults will recognize her as a trusted diverse voice. In her endnote, she explains her desire to “encourage lively conversations about shared experiences.” Starting out with the familiar, home and community, the text begins with “How many WONDERFUL PEOPLE do you know?” Then it moves out to the world: “Did you know there are about 8 BILLION PEOPLE on the planet?” The photo essay features the usual concrete similarities and differences found in many books of this type, such as housing (a Mongolian yurt opposite a Hong Kong apartment building overlooking a basketball court), food (dumplings, pizza, cotton candy, a churro, etc.), and school. Manzano also makes sure to point out likenesses in emotions, as shown in a montage of photos from countries including China, Spain, Kashmir (Pakistan/India), and the United States. At the end, a world map and thumbnail images show the locations of all photos, revealing a preponderance of examples from the U.S. and a slight underrepresentation for Africa and South America.
Engaging, well-chosen images and a clear, coherent text illuminate the importance of empathy for the world’s inhabitants. (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4263-3738-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: National Geographic Kids
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
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