The story of Aunt Clara Brown deserves to be better known. As Patricia McKissack writes in the introduction, Aunt Clara Brown was “a classic American hero.” Born a slave, probably in 1800 in Virginia, Clara was sold with her mother to a farmer named Ambrose Smith. In 1809, the Smith family moved west to Kentucky by covered wagon over the Wilderness Road. Eventually, Clara purchased her freedom, moved to St. Louis, and later to Colorado in the Colorado Gold Rush of 1849. Always she searched for her daughter, Eliza Jane, sold on the auction block, stolen from her life. When the Civil War ended, Clara returned to the South to look for her daughter and, instead, found a new “family” of dispossessed former slaves and settled them in Colorado. At the end of her life, Clara was reunited with Eliza Jane, after 46 years and 5,000 miles of traveling and searching, “a million tears, a lifetime of faith that one day, despite all odds, this very moment would come to pass.” This entry in the newly reinvigorated Landmark series is lively, well written, and full of historical detail, an impassioned account of racism faced and transcended. Each chapter is followed by information on such historical events such as the Dred Scott Case, the Underground Railroad, the Missouri Compromise, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Readers will come to care about Clara Brown and learn much about the times in which she lived. A fine work for biography fans and a necessity for American history collections. (introduction, author’s note, notes on research, bibliography, acknowledgments, photo credits, index) (Nonfiction. 9+)
Pub Date: Dec. 17, 2002
ISBN: 0-375-81092-7
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A beautiful, powerful reflection on a tragic history.
In spare verse, Lowry reflects on moments in her childhood, including the bombings of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima.
When she was a child, Lowry played at Waikiki Beach with her grandmother while her father filmed. In the old home movie, the USS Arizona appears through the mist on the horizon. Looking back at her childhood in Hawaii and then Japan, Lowry reflects on the bombings that began and ended a war and how they affected and connected everyone involved. In Part 1, she shares the lives and actions of sailors at Pearl Harbor. Part 2 is stories of civilians in Hiroshima affected by the bombing. Part 3 presents her own experience as an American in Japan shortly after the war ended. The poems bring the haunting human scale of war to the forefront, like the Christmas cards a sailor sent days before he died or the 4-year-old who was buried with his red tricycle after Hiroshima. All the personal stories—of sailors, civilians, and Lowry herself—are grounding. There is heartbreak and hope, reminding readers to reflect on the past to create a more peaceful future. Lowry uses a variety of poetry styles, identifying some, such as triolet and haiku. Pak’s graphite illustrations are like still shots of history, adding to the emotion and somber feeling. He includes some sailors of color among the mostly white U.S. forces; Lowry is white.
A beautiful, powerful reflection on a tragic history. (author’s note, bibliography) (Memoir/poetry. 10-14)Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-358-12940-0
Page Count: 80
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
PROFILES
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats.
Why should grown-ups get all the historical, scientific, athletic, cinematic, and artistic glory?
Choosing exemplars from both past and present, Mitchell includes but goes well beyond Alexander the Great, Anne Frank, and like usual suspects to introduce a host of lesser-known luminaries. These include Shapur II, who was formally crowned king of Persia before he was born, Indian dancer/professional architect Sheila Sri Prakash, transgender spokesperson Jazz Jennings, inventor Param Jaggi, and an international host of other teen or preteen activists and prodigies. The individual portraits range from one paragraph to several pages in length, and they are interspersed with group tributes to, for instance, the Nazi-resisting “Swingkinder,” the striking New York City newsboys, and the marchers of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade. Mitchell even offers would-be villains a role model in Elagabalus, “boy emperor of Rome,” though she notes that he, at least, came to an awful end: “Then, then! They dumped his remains in the Tiber River, to be nommed by fish for all eternity.” The entries are arranged in no evident order, and though the backmatter includes multiple booklists, a personality quiz, a glossary, and even a quick Braille primer (with Braille jokes to decode), there is no index. Still, for readers whose fires need lighting, there’s motivational kindling on nearly every page.
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats. (finished illustrations not seen) (Collective biography. 10-13)Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-751813-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Puffin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
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