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I AM NOT A NUMBER

Name: I AM NOT A NUMBER
Author: Jenny Kay Dupuis
ISBN: 978-1-927583-94-4

by Jenny Kay Dupuis & Kathy Kacer ; illustrated by Gillian Newland ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 6, 2016

A moving glimpse into a not-very-long-past injustice.

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When the Indian agent comes for Irene and her brothers, their parents reluctantly give them up to be taken to one of Canada’s infamous residential schools.

At the school, Irene is separated from her brothers, scrubbed, shorn, and assigned a number: 759. When she and another girl exchange words in Ojibwa, a nun punishes Irene for speaking “the devil’s language.” The punishment is horrifying: she is made to hold a bedpan filled with hot coals. The year passes slowly, chapel preferable to chores and lessons, especially as she can see her brothers there. At home the next summer, Irene tells her father, the community’s chief, about the “lessons” taught at “that horrible place”—and when the Indian agent comes again in the fall, the children hide while he tells the agent, “You will NEVER. TAKE MY CHILDREN. AWAY. AGAIN!” By the time readers get to this place in the story, they will have gotten past the stiff beginning and occasional overwriting and will be as relieved as Irene at their rescue. Newland’s watercolors capture the warmth of this Anishinaabe family and the austerity of the boarding school; the scene in which Irene’s father stares down the agent will have children cheering. Dupuis and Kacer base the story on the experiences of Dupuis’ grandmother, and they provide further information on the residential schools in an author’s note.

A moving glimpse into a not-very-long-past injustice. (Picture book. 7-11)

Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-927583-94-4

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Second Story Press

Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

- BOOK REVIEW
HEART BERRY BLING
by Jenny Kay Dupuis ; illustrated by Eva Campbell

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LITTLE DAYMOND LEARNS TO EARN

by Daymond John ; illustrated by Nicole Miles ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 21, 2023

It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.

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How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!

John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)

Pub Date: March 21, 2023

ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023

Categories:

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTS | CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES

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TUCK EVERLASTING

by Natalie Babbitt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1975

However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the...

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At a time when death has become an acceptable, even voguish subject in children's fiction, Natalie Babbitt comes through with a stylistic gem about living forever.

Protected Winnie, the ten-year-old heroine, is not immortal, but when she comes upon young Jesse Tuck drinking from a secret spring in her parents' woods, she finds herself involved with a family who, having innocently drunk the same water some 87 years earlier, haven't aged a moment since. Though the mood is delicate, there is no lack of action, with the Tucks (previously suspected of witchcraft) now pursued for kidnapping Winnie; Mae Tuck, the middle aged mother, striking and killing a stranger who is onto their secret and would sell the water; and Winnie taking Mae's place in prison so that the Tucks can get away before she is hanged from the neck until....? Though Babbitt makes the family a sad one, most of their reasons for discontent are circumstantial and there isn't a great deal of wisdom to be gleaned from their fate or Winnie's decision not to share it.

However the compelling fitness of theme and event and the apt but unexpected imagery (the opening sentences compare the first week in August when this takes place to "the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning") help to justify the extravagant early assertion that had the secret about to be revealed been known at the time of the action, the very earth "would have trembled on its axis like a beetle on a pin." (Fantasy. 9-11)