A critical contribution to discussions of equal access and of systemic racism.
Separate but equal—even primary grade students understand this prejudicial oxymoron.
Separation is never equal. When the Lemon Grove School District’s board of trustees decided to expel every one of the 75 students who were of Mexican American descent in order to establish an all-White student body, the Lemon Grove Neighbor’s Committee—Comité de Vecinos de Lemon Grove—decided to take action. The Mexican consul in San Diego provided lawyers who filed on behalf of 12-year-old Roberto Alvarez in San Diego’s California Superior Court. Exploding the board of trustees’ assertion that the minority students were “backward and deficient,” Roberto himself, in fluent English, defended his position. This was the “first successfully fought school desegregation case in the United States.” On April 16, 1931, the decision was made public: “to immediately admit and receive…Roberto Alvarez, and all other pupils of Mexican parentage…without separation or segregation.” Brimner’s straightforward narrative follows Roberto Alvarez from his return to school after Christmas vacation only to be told he was no longer welcome to the day he was able to receive the same education as the White students. The substantial author’s note places this case in context with other desegregation cases in the U.S.—particularly in California. Gonzalez’s colorful and detailed mural-esque illustrations make the historical flavor of the times accessible.
A critical contribution to discussions of equal access and of systemic racism. (photos, sources, source notes) (Informational picture book. 8-11)Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68437-195-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
This indisputably timely book makes a solid case for greater recognition.
Profiles a virologist who was among the first to photograph and identify the coronavirus family.
Almeida’s own family has a significant presence in this account of her career and discoveries. Slade begins with her Glasgow-born subject’s early love of science and the death of her little brother, continues through marriage, divorce, and single parenting to track her growing reputation for expertise in microphotography and electron microscopy, then highlights the watershed human coronavirus paper she co-authored in 1967. A specific description of how she used “negative staining” to prepare her coronavirus specimens adds a laudatory glimpse of technical detail to the plain-language explanations of her discoveries. Incorporating memories and material supplied by the researcher’s daughter, the author of A Computer Called Katherine (illustrated by Veronica Miller Jameson, 2019) presents another underrecognized woman scientist as a role model. In this case, Almeida is not seen as a crusader breaking down barriers of race (she was White) and sexism but more generally as a smart, hard worker doing her best in both private and professional lives. If her character remains hard to pin down, a bit of verse preceding the expansive afterword (“Virus, Virus, shining bright / In the phosphotungstic night”) hints at a sense of humor. Single scientists of color in two group scenes are the only non-White figures in Paganelli’s clean, precisely drawn cartoon illustrations. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 77% of actual size.)
This indisputably timely book makes a solid case for greater recognition. (timeline, adult bibliography.) (Picture book/biography. 8-10)Pub Date: March 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5341-1132-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
Interesting anecdotes mitigate the missed opportunities in this history.
Primary sources enliven this history of the New York state refugee camp that housed nearly 1,000 people displaced by the Nazis.
In 1944, a U.S. Navy ship brings 982 displaced people from Italy to New York’s Fort Ontario in Oswego. The vast majority—874—are Jews, the rest are Christians, and all are refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe. They’re the beneficiaries of a far too limited American program to help some victims of horrific persecution. Augmented by photographs and drawing on first-person accounts and government records, this is a history of European refugees, many of whom are death-camp survivors, who exist in a middle ground between immigrant and prisoner. They’ve signed agreements acknowledging that they’re “guests” who aren’t allowed to work and who’ll be returned to Europe at the war’s end. But it’s still upsetting that they’re confined in the camp. In creating the camp, the War Relocation Authority drew on its expertise in running the Japanese concentration camps (called “internment camps” in the text) in the U.S.; after pointing this out, the history doesn’t ask any of the uncomfortable questions thus raised. The judgment of the government’s treatment of the White (by American standards, if not by German) refugees is mostly positive. A brief introduction to nativism and “America First” policies yields to praise of the friendships between New Yorkers and the refugees. Quoted primary sources aren’t always well-contextualized in the text.
Interesting anecdotes mitigate the missed opportunities in this history. (epilogue, timeline, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 9-11)Pub Date: June 8, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64160-383-6
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2021
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