Haskins (Black, Blue, and Gray, 1998, etc.) profiles 31 African-Americans, including seven women, who overcame towering obstacles of law and custom to achieve financial success in fields such as banking, cosmetics, electrical engineering, music, and real estate. Some, such as plantation (and slave) owner Marie-ThÇräse Metoyer worked to buy freedom for their families; some exploited white prejudice to occupy unfilled market niches; all displayed plenty of courage, initiative, and ingenuity. The careers of people such as Paul Cuffe, Madame C.J. Walker, and Oprah Winfrey are already well-documented, but hairdresser Pierre Toussaint, filmmaker Oscar Michaeux, and businessman A.G. ``It doesn't do any good to arrive at first-class citizenship if you arrive broke'' Gaston will be less familiar to readers, and the gallery includes still-rising stars Alphonse Fletcher, Jr. (financial management) and Omar Wasow (computer entrepreneur). Dividing the work into ``The Early Years,'' ``The Civil War Years and Reconstruction,'' ``Into the New Century,'' and ``Modern Times,'' Haskins draws information from published, mostly secondary, sources, and generally steers clear of personal details and extended quotations, so there isn't much sense of his subjects' individual characters or voices. The diversity of their paths to success, however, makes a refreshing change from the ``official'' versions offered by most athletes and other celebrities, putting this a step above school assignment fodder. (b&w illustrations, index, not seen, chronology, bibliography) (Biography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 13, 1998
ISBN: 0-471-14576-9
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Wiley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1998
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats.
Why should grown-ups get all the historical, scientific, athletic, cinematic, and artistic glory?
Choosing exemplars from both past and present, Mitchell includes but goes well beyond Alexander the Great, Anne Frank, and like usual suspects to introduce a host of lesser-known luminaries. These include Shapur II, who was formally crowned king of Persia before he was born, Indian dancer/professional architect Sheila Sri Prakash, transgender spokesperson Jazz Jennings, inventor Param Jaggi, and an international host of other teen or preteen activists and prodigies. The individual portraits range from one paragraph to several pages in length, and they are interspersed with group tributes to, for instance, the Nazi-resisting “Swingkinder,” the striking New York City newsboys, and the marchers of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade. Mitchell even offers would-be villains a role model in Elagabalus, “boy emperor of Rome,” though she notes that he, at least, came to an awful end: “Then, then! They dumped his remains in the Tiber River, to be nommed by fish for all eternity.” The entries are arranged in no evident order, and though the backmatter includes multiple booklists, a personality quiz, a glossary, and even a quick Braille primer (with Braille jokes to decode), there is no index. Still, for readers whose fires need lighting, there’s motivational kindling on nearly every page.
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats. (finished illustrations not seen) (Collective biography. 10-13)Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-751813-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Puffin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
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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