An appealing and informative composition aimed at a younger audience than Marilyn Nelson and Jerry Pinkney’s Sweethearts of...
Women! Jazz! Integration!
In 1909, Dr. Laurence Clifton Jones founded a school and orphanage for black children in Mississippi, and in 1939, he started an all-girl swing band: the Sweethearts of Rhythm. Swing “was filled with energy!” The girls performed locally and throughout the country. In 1945, they played to enthusiastic soldiers as part of a USO tour brought about by a letter-writing campaign from African-American GIs. Writing in a folksy style, Deans describes the lives of the girls in the orphanage and on the road in Jim Crow territory; this, ironically, was made even more difficult after the band integrated. The infectious joy of swing music comes across nicely with details about instrumentation and performances. A scary encounter with the police is also described. Cepeda’s colorful and richly textured full-bleed acrylic-and-oil paintings match the mostly upbeat mood with illustrations of the women happily playing various instruments, joyfully askew compositions evoking the big-band beat. The group did not stay together, but the final illustration opens the way for more music as a now-elderly Sweetheart hands over her trumpet to a smiling girl. Readers will certainly want to grab recordings and dance and swing to the sounds.
An appealing and informative composition aimed at a younger audience than Marilyn Nelson and Jerry Pinkney’s Sweethearts of Rhythm (2009). (author’s note, selected bibliography) (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8234-1970-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Here is a grand deed, as basic as a science-fair project, that had a profound application bringing health and economic bounty to a small coastal town, Hargigo, in Eritrea. Dr. Gordon Santo had a brainstorm: Why not plant mangrove trees in the waters off Hargigo? The leaves would feed the town’s hungry herds of sheep and goats and provide wood for fuel; the trees’ root system would attract fish (a food and revenue source); and the trees themselves would do what trees are so good at—converting carbon dioxide to oxygen. Roth’s artwork is a treat, cut-paper and fabric collages of intense, shimmering color on a ground of paper that is electric with thick veins of fiber (photos join glossary in backmatter). Roth and Trumbore’s cumulative verse goes about its merry way on the left page—“These are the shepherds / Who watch the goats / and watch the sheep / That eat the leaves”—while a narrative on the right takes readers on Santo’s journey. He has named the project Manzanar, after the internment camp where he was placed during World War II, because he wanted to turn that experience (where he first grew desert plants) into something good. Hitting home hard is the project’s simple practicality: no high-tech, no great infusions of capital or energy—in a word, motivating, in the best possible way. (Informational picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-60060-459-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
What shall we do with the contrary man? Joseph Palmer's long golden beard is the pride of his family and the bane of the small Massachusetts town where he lives. It flows all the way down to his belly and "from elbow to elbow," earning him the nickname Beard. But people jeer, calling him "Un-American!" One day, four men with scissors try to ambush Beard, but he fights them off. Then these men have the nerve to go to court and blame Beard for attacking them. The judge issues a $10 fine, and, when Beard refuses to pay it, they put him in jail for a year. Beard's tearful family visits him every day, and he complains about the conditions in letters to the editor. When Beard's year in jail ends, he again refuses to pay his fine. The frustrated sheriff and jailer come up with a unique solution, one that's sure to surprise readers as much as Beard. It's based on a true story; Hyatt includes a generous historical note. The compression demanded by the picture-book form is felt in Hyatt's prose, but she cleanly lays out a morality tale that could prompt a healthy civics lesson. Brown's arch illustrations, in watercolor with pen and ink, nicely capture 19th-century New England. This will do until a full Beard Palmer YA novel comes along. (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8109-4065-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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