An inspiring biography of Nelson Mandela, who made ending South African apartheid his life’s work.
Accompanied by Palmer’s rich, full-color acrylic paintings, the substantial text explores Mandela’s life: his youth in a Xhosa village, his time at university, his early political activism and imprisonment, and his rise to the South African presidency. McDivitt offers enough apartheid history to help young readers understand the systematic nature of racism, implemented through restrictive policies, and how it negatively impacted every aspect of life for Black South Africans. Palmer’s illustrator’s note explains that although the images could have conveyed much more negativity, given the violence of apartheid, he wanted to illustrate the hope that Mandela had for his homeland—a recurring theme in the text—and therefore created bright, colorful, and uplifting artwork throughout. The double-page spread of a tearful Mandela, still imprisoned, holding his new granddaughter is especially moving. McDivitt’s author’s note explains that her Afrikaner family, who relocated to the U.S. in 1962, the year of Mandela’s imprisonment, felt such shame about their background that they rarely discussed apartheid: “I learned that educating myself about racism is a lifelong process”—wise words for the contemporary United States, where a reckoning around systemic racism and White supremacy is well underway. Ten pages of age-appropriate backmatter make this an excellent resource for learning about Mandela and apartheid.
Beautiful, informative, essential. (Picture book/biography. 8-12)Pub Date: March 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5502-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
Categories: CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | CHILDREN'S HISTORY
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A measured corrective to pervasive myths about what is often referred to as the “first Thanksgiving.”
Contextualizing them within a Native perspective, Newell (Passamaquoddy) touches on the all-too-familiar elements of the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving and its origins and the history of English colonization in the territory now known as New England. In addition to the voyage and landfall of the Mayflower, readers learn about the Doctrine of Discovery that arrogated the lands of non-Christian peoples to European settlers; earlier encounters between the Indigenous peoples of the region and Europeans; and the Great Dying of 1616-1619, which emptied the village of Patuxet by 1620. Short, two- to six-page chapters alternate between the story of the English settlers and exploring the complex political makeup of the region and the culture, agriculture, and technology of the Wampanoag—all before covering the evolution of the holiday. Refreshingly, the lens Newell offers is a Native one, describing how the Wampanoag and other Native peoples received the English rather than the other way around. Key words ranging from estuary to discover are printed in boldface in the narrative and defined in a closing glossary. Nelson (a member of the Leech Lake Band of Minnesota Chippewa) contributes soft line-and-color illustrations of the proceedings. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Essential. (Nonfiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-72637-4
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Scholastic Nonfiction
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
Categories: CHILDREN'S HISTORY | CHILDREN'S HOLIDAYS & CELEBRATIONS
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In 1977, the oil carrier Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into a formerly pristine Alaskan ocean inlet, killing millions of birds, animals, and fish. Despite a cleanup, crude oil is still there.
The Winters foretold the destructive powers of the atomic bomb allusively in The Secret Project (2017), leaving the actuality to the backmatter. They make no such accommodations to young audiences in this disturbing book. From the dark front cover, on which oily blobs conceal a seabird, to the rescuer’s sad face on the back, the mother-son team emphasizes the disaster. A relatively easy-to-read and poetically heightened text introduces the situation. Oil is pumped from the Earth “all day long, all night long, / day after day, year after year” in “what had been unspoiled land, home to Native people // and thousands of caribou.” The scale of extraction is huge: There’s “a giant pipeline” leading to “enormous ships.” Then, crash. Rivers of oil gush out over three full-bleed wordless pages. Subsequent scenes show rocks, seabirds, and sea otters covered with oil. Finally, 30 years later, animals have returned to a cheerful scene. “But if you lift a rock… // oil / seeps / up.” For an adult reader, this is heartbreaking. How much more difficult might this be for an animal-loving child?
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care. (author’s note, further reading) (Informational picture book. 9-12)Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3077-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S HISTORY | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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