An impassioned, well-researched history of a groundbreaking California public school.
A pair of sociologists explore the unheralded multicultural legacy of a 1960s and ’70s-era California High School.
Opened from 1956 to 1981, California’s Sunnyvale High School “was built for the baby boom,” write authors Hansen and Monroe. Despite the city of Sunnyvale’s relative affluence, with ties to the defense industry and nascent Silicon Valley, SHS was seen by many in the community as “poor and rowdy.” Yet, to its multicultural attendees, which included white, Black, Hispanic, and Asian American students, it “provided a refuge” that was a half-century ahead of its time. The school offered groundbreaking academic instruction for the 1970s, including a Black history class taught by a beloved and dynamic teacher, as well as a “robust program” in the creative and performing arts. It offered vocational education, such as one of Silicon Valley’s first electronics classes, which “dignified manual labor” and prepared students for career success. More than just its innovative curriculum, SHS’s visionary leadership and staff prioritized student leadership, providing ample opportunities for student-driven decision-making that fostered individual empowerment and community building. In an era often defined by racial tension, especially in public schools, SHS’s diverse student and faculty body were remarkably unified. A graduate of Sunnyvale High, author Hansen credits the school with fostering her intellectual curiosity; she became a professor of sociology at Brandeis University and the author of multiple academic books. In this impassioned volume, she combines her scholarly background with her personal connections to the school. Based largely on interviews of more than 50 SHS graduates and teachers, in addition to archival material, the book stitches together a layered, rich history of the successful multicultural high school. A recent Ph.D. graduate from Brandeis, co-author Monroe is a former middle-school history teacher who taught in Chicago and Gary, Indiana, and helps provide commentary about how Sunnyvale High’s “cutting edge” approach to multicultural education and student empowerment can inform 21st-century schools today.
An impassioned, well-researched history of a groundbreaking California public school.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9781666959680
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Lexington Books
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.
An experimental, illustrated essay collection that questions neurotypical definitions of what is normal.
From a young age, writer and comedian Myers has been different. In addition to coping with obsessive compulsive disorder and panic attacks, she struggled to read basic social cues. During a round of seven minutes in heaven—a game in which two players spend seven minutes in a closet and are expected to kiss—Myers misread the romantic advances of her best friend and longtime crush, Marley. In Paris, she accidentally invited a sex worker to join her friends for “board games and beer,” thinking he was simply a random stranger who happened to be hitting on her. In community college, a stranger’s request for a pen spiraled her into a panic attack but resulted in a tentative friendship. When the author moved to Australia, she began taking notes on her colleagues in an effort to know them better. As the author says to her co-worker, Tabitha, “there are unspoken social contracts within a workplace that—by some miracle—everyone else already understands, and I don’t….When things Go Without Saying, they Never Get Said, and sometimes people need you to Say Those Things So They Understand What The Hell Is Going On.” At its best, Myers’ prose is vulnerable and humorous, capturing characterization in small but consequential life moments, and her illustrations beautifully complement the text. Unfortunately, the author’s tendency toward unnecessary capitalization and experimental forms is often unsuccessful, breaking the book’s otherwise steady rhythm.
A frank and funny but uneven essay collection about neurodiversity.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063381308
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2025
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