An engaging piece of history for kids, long overdue.
Boeglin’s nonfiction picture book tells of how an enslaved Black man and a French nobleman worked together to help turn the tide of the Revolutionary War.
The Marquis de Lafayette believes in freedom for all people, so he sails across the Atlantic Ocean to help the American colonists fight their War of Independence; there, James is in bondage, enslaved by an army-supplies contractor. When Lafayette and James meet, the marquis treats the enslaved man with respect and finds a way to recruit him to pose as a runaway and spy on the British. James later passes on information that allows Gen. George Washington to trap the British army at Yorktown. After the war, James is refused his freedom by the Virginia General Assembly; two years later, he petitions a second time, this time with Lafayette’s backing, and is successful; James will then take the surname Lafayette. Boeglin narrates the story in straightforward, informative prose, trusting in its inherent power to educate and inspire. Many youngsters may have their eyes opened, not merely by the idea of an enslaved person helping to bring about his country’s liberation, but also by the fact that James remains largely unheralded. Tsipan’s watercolor-style illustrations beautifully capture the period setting and its personalities. The book concludes with a timeline and an extensive bibliography.
An engaging piece of history for kids, long overdue.Pub Date: March 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781966675761
Page Count: 39
Publisher: Solander Press
Review Posted Online: April 29, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit.
The bubble-helmeted feline explains what rockets do and the role they have played in sending people (and animals) into space.
Addressing a somewhat younger audience than in previous outings (Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space, 2013, etc.), Astro Cat dispenses with all but a light shower of “factoroids” to describe how rockets work. A highly selective “History of Space Travel” follows—beginning with a crew of fruit flies sent aloft in 1947, later the dog Laika (her dismal fate left unmentioned), and the human Yuri Gagarin. Then it’s on to Apollo 11 in 1969; the space shuttles Discovery, Columbia, and Challenger (the fates of the latter two likewise elided); the promise of NASA’s next-gen Orion and the Space Launch System; and finally vague closing references to other rockets in the works for local tourism and, eventually, interstellar travel. In the illustrations the spacesuited professor, joined by a mouse and cat in similar dress, do little except float in space and point at things. Still, the art has a stylish retro look, and portraits of Sally Ride and Guion Bluford diversify an otherwise all-white, all-male astronaut corps posing heroically or riding blocky, geometric spacecraft across starry reaches.
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-911171-55-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A picture book more than worthy of sharing the shelf with Alan Schroeder and Jerry Pinkney’s Minty (1996) and Carole Boston...
A memorable, lyrical reverse-chronological walk through the life of an American icon.
In free verse, Cline-Ransome narrates the life of Harriet Tubman, starting and ending with a train ride Tubman takes as an old woman. “But before wrinkles formed / and her eyes failed,” Tubman could walk tirelessly under a starlit sky. Cline-Ransome then describes the array of roles Tubman played throughout her life, including suffragist, abolitionist, Union spy, and conductor on the Underground Railroad. By framing the story around a literal train ride, the Ransomes juxtapose the privilege of traveling by rail against Harriet’s earlier modes of travel, when she repeatedly ran for her life. Racism still abounds, however, for she rides in a segregated train. While the text introduces readers to the details of Tubman’s life, Ransome’s use of watercolor—such a striking departure from his oil illustrations in many of his other picture books—reveals Tubman’s humanity, determination, drive, and hope. Ransome’s lavishly detailed and expansive double-page spreads situate young readers in each time and place as the text takes them further into the past.
A picture book more than worthy of sharing the shelf with Alan Schroeder and Jerry Pinkney’s Minty (1996) and Carole Boston Weatherford and Kadir Nelson’s Moses (2006). (Picture book/biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2047-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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