An engaging story for young fans of history that may be useful in a classroom.
A horse-drawn train faces off against a steam locomotive in Tabler’s book for young readers.
Lucius Stockton is having a lovely opening day on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. It’s Monday, September 20, 1830, and he is running the horse-powered train that delights riders experiencing the new track for the first time. However, he is brought back down to Earth by the appearance of Peter Cooper’s steam locomotive. An onlooker guffaws, “As if a horse could catch a steam locomotive!” Stockton takes this comment as a challenge and arranges for his horse-drawn train to sit alongside the locomotive, called Tom Thumb because of its small size, at an opportune moment. Following a luncheon honoring horse-drawn railroad supporter (and Declaration of Independence signer) Charles Carroll’s 93rd birthday, a crowd of party guests rushes outside to view the locomotive. It isn’t long before someone suggests a race, as Stockton likely intends. The two modes of transportation take off for an exciting contest that leaves readers on the edges of their seats. Stockton knows that steam is the future, but he isn’t ready to give up—and neither is his horse. Will he be able to pull ahead, right when the locomotive is in hot pursuit? As in her previous book, Rats in the White House (2020), the author sheds light on a true but lesser-known historical event through a dynamic story. The stakes are low, as the narrative itself acknowledges, but the race remains exciting in the short term. Tabler’s use of sensory details, like the sound of Mitzie the horse’s pounding hooves and Tom Thumb’s whistle “screaming,” brings the race alive. Antonello’s full-color illustrations are less exciting but serviceable, though the color scheme on one page that renders the horse blue and red is a strange choice.
An engaging story for young fans of history that may be useful in a classroom.Pub Date: May 22, 2023
ISBN: 9781956019940
Page Count: 26
Publisher: DartFrog Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A picture book more than worthy of sharing the shelf with Alan Schroeder and Jerry Pinkney’s Minty (1996) and Carole Boston...
A memorable, lyrical reverse-chronological walk through the life of an American icon.
In free verse, Cline-Ransome narrates the life of Harriet Tubman, starting and ending with a train ride Tubman takes as an old woman. “But before wrinkles formed / and her eyes failed,” Tubman could walk tirelessly under a starlit sky. Cline-Ransome then describes the array of roles Tubman played throughout her life, including suffragist, abolitionist, Union spy, and conductor on the Underground Railroad. By framing the story around a literal train ride, the Ransomes juxtapose the privilege of traveling by rail against Harriet’s earlier modes of travel, when she repeatedly ran for her life. Racism still abounds, however, for she rides in a segregated train. While the text introduces readers to the details of Tubman’s life, Ransome’s use of watercolor—such a striking departure from his oil illustrations in many of his other picture books—reveals Tubman’s humanity, determination, drive, and hope. Ransome’s lavishly detailed and expansive double-page spreads situate young readers in each time and place as the text takes them further into the past.
A picture book more than worthy of sharing the shelf with Alan Schroeder and Jerry Pinkney’s Minty (1996) and Carole Boston Weatherford and Kadir Nelson’s Moses (2006). (Picture book/biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2047-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
Pretty but substance-free—which is probably not how any of this book’s subjects would like to be remembered.
Inspired by Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s stand against the appointment of Sen. Jeff Sessions as U.S. attorney general—and titled for Sen. Mitch McConnell’s stifling of same—glancing introductions to 13 American women who “persisted.”
Among the figures relatively familiar to the audience are Harriet Tubman, Helen Keller, and Ruby Bridges; among the more obscure are union organizer Clara Lemlich, physician Virginia Apgar, and Olympian Florence Griffith Joyner. Sonia Sotomayor and Oprah Winfrey are two readers may already have some consciousness of. The women have clearly been carefully selected to represent American diversity, although there are significant gaps—there are no Asian-American women, for instance—and the extreme brevity of the coverage leads to reductivism and erasure: Osage dancer Maria Tallchief is identified only as “Native American,” and lesbian Sally Ride’s sexual orientation is elided completely. Clinton’s prose is almost bloodless, running to such uninspiring lines as, about Margaret Chase Smith, “she persisted in championing women’s rights and more opportunities for women in the military, standing up for free speech and supporting space exploration.” Boiger does her best to compensate, creating airy watercolors full of movement for each double-page spread. Quotations are incorporated into illustrations—although the absence of dates and context leaves them unmoored. That’s the overall feeling readers will get, as the uniformity of presentation and near-total lack of detail makes this overview so broad as to be ineffectual. The failure to provide any sources for further information should the book manage to pique readers’ interests simply exacerbates the problem.
Pretty but substance-free—which is probably not how any of this book’s subjects would like to be remembered. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4172-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
