Grist for thoughtful readers about two visionaries with very different sorts of visions.
A philosopher and a businessman both take advantage of nature’s bounty.
“Oddball / tax dodger / nature lover” Henry David Thoreau watches from his small cabin as “Bankrupt / disgrace / good for nothing” Frederic Tudor and his crew methodically saw the ice of frozen Walden Pond into blocks and pile them up—not for local use but to be shipped across the world to India. Calling both men dreamers, Cline-Ransome employs spare free verse as she follows each of them. In her carefully detailed paintings, Yazdani offers views from elevated perspectives of the pond’s changes through each season, Thoreau’s cozy cabin, and ice that is first swathed in hay and sawdust, then loaded aboard the ship Delhi for its monthslong voyage. As back in Concord, Thoreau marvels at how “The pure Walden water / is mingled with / The sacred water / of the Ganges,” on the other side of the world, Indian workers rush the precious ice through sweltering Calcutta streets to the homes of wealthy White residents. The pond has offered “an inspiration for Thoreau / a harvest for Tudor / a bounty for both.” In her afterword, the poet explains how Tudor’s visionary venture, which (plainly) involved inventive new methods of ice storage, reversed his flagging fortunes and why it seems likely that his customers were not native Indians but their British exploiters. Readers are left to ponder which man profited most from their association with a natural resource. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Grist for thoughtful readers about two visionaries with very different sorts of visions. (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Nov. 15, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4858-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
An appealing, lively portrait that may nonetheless fail to pique the interest of many in the intended audience.
This brief biography of Jane Austen describes her life and notes the hardships and expectations she overcame to become a published author.
Pliscou paints a vivid picture of the world Jane was born into, from the physical environment of home and village to the strictures on women’s accomplishments and experiences. The relatively lengthy text flows smoothly. It details the hardships that Jane and her family faced, from financial difficulties both before and after her father’s death to Jane’s survival of (and long, book-filled recuperation from) a serious illness, and emphasizes that despite these challenges Jane was dedicated to perfecting her craft. Corace’s illustrations, created using gouache, ink, acrylic, and pencil, have a stylized look and a relatively limited, somewhat subdued palette. They effectively evoke the historic period and include a nod to a popular decorative style of the day in an attractive double-page spread of silhouettes that conveys Jane’s determination as she “read, sewed, planned menus…went to parties, helped to take care of her parents, and…kept on writing her funny, thoughtful stories.” As Deborah Hopkinson and Qin Leng do in Ordinary, Extraordinary Jane Austen (2018), Pliscou introduces a revered author for adults to an audience who has likely never heard of her; as recorded here, Austen’s quiet life doesn’t give children much to latch onto.
An appealing, lively portrait that may nonetheless fail to pique the interest of many in the intended audience. (author’s note, quotations, bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 7-9)Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-62779-643-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Oct. 15, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
An engaging and informative true story of perseverance and discovery.
Fern and Kulikov, collaborators on the picture-book biographies Barnum’s Bones (2012) and W is for Webster (2015), bring the self-taught archaeologist who discovered King Tut’s tomb to life.
Howard Carter’s obsession with mummies began when he was a boy in England and visited a nearby mansion filled with ancient Egyptian artifacts. Carter dreamed of discovering a mummy himself. At 17, he took a job copying ancient art for the Egypt Exploration Fund. Awed by the art and architecture he sketched and copied, Carter was eager to make discoveries of his own. He taught himself the methodologies of archaeology, Arabic, geology, Egyptian history, and how to read hieroglyphics. As an antiquities inspector for the Egyptian government, Carter excavated several tombs only to find they had been looted. Undaunted, Carter devised a plan to excavate every unsearched inch in the Valley of the Kings. His dogged persistence paid off in 1922 when he discovered the treasure-filled tomb of Tutankhamun. Quoting from Carter’s own account, Fern infuses her story with excitement. She describes Carter as having a “funky personality” with a “stubborn attitude and worse table manners”; Kulikov’s exaggerated illustrations energetically capture Carter’s ambition and fascination with his subject.
An engaging and informative true story of perseverance and discovery. (author’s note, bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-374-30305-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
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