Enlightening, visually gorgeous, and emotionally moving.
From the first humans in North America to the immigrants and refugees of today, the story of America’s diversity is the story of migration.
Poetic text and stunning watercolors outline the history of how peoples from all over the globe arrived in what is now the United States of America. Peters likens migrants to seeds that are carried on the wind, taking root in the new soil, creating a “garden of Americans who turn to face the wind.” The book begins with spreads featuring different groups of arrivals, chosen for their numbers, contributions, or impact. Native Americans, English settlers, enslaved Africans, Chinese railroad workers, and migrant field workers are among those featured, and each is accompanied by a few sentences that do not explicitly mention country names but cut to the core of their significance with pointed honesty. “The brutal leader” of a group of “colonists” depicted as conquistadors, for instance, is recorded as having “slaughtered the tribe that was living” where they settled. After the Statue of Liberty’s famous welcoming poem appears in its entirety, more modern immigration is represented. These pages feature individuals here and now: a mother who works long cleaning shifts, a 13-year-old refugee who wears a head scarf, a boy who loves soccer. And finally, a city block exuberantly depicting residents of many skin tones under a celebratory sky of fireworks. The beautiful text celebrates America’s difficult immigrant history with honesty and respect while simultaneously maintaining a feeling of pride and optimism in its present and future. Extremely informative notes round out this outstanding book. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10.5-by-21-inch double-page spreads viewed at 53.1% of actual size.)
Enlightening, visually gorgeous, and emotionally moving. (glossary, note, sources) (Informational picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12313-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With powerful art from a bold new talent, this is a probing and sensitive take on a devastating chapter of U.S. history.
“How do you tell a story / that starts in Africa / and ends in horror?”
Alexander uses multiple voices to weave this poem about a teacher who takes on the difficult but necessary task of starting a classroom conversation about slavery. Between the theft of people from the African continent and the sale of people in America, from the ships that brought them and the ocean that swallowed some of them to their uncompensated work and the breakup of families, Alexander introduces objections from the implied listeners (“But you can’t sell people,” “That’s not fair”), despair from the narrating adult, encouragement from the youth, and ultimately an answer to the repeated question about how to tell this story. Rising star Coulter’s mixed-media art elevates the lyrical text with clarity and deep emotion: Using sculpted forms and paintings for the historical figures gives them a unique texture and lifelike fullness, while the charcoal drawings on yellow paper used for the present-day student-teacher interactions invite readers to step inside. Where Coulter combines the two, connecting past with present, the effect is stunning. Both young readers and adults unsure of how to talk about this painful past with children will find valuable insights.
With powerful art from a bold new talent, this is a probing and sensitive take on a devastating chapter of U.S. history. (author’s and illustrator’s notes) (Informational picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-316-47312-5
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
A reasonably solid grounding in constitutional rights, their flexibility, lacunae, and hard-won corrections, despite a few...
Shamir offers an investigation of the foundations of freedoms in the United States via its founding documents, as well as movements and individuals who had great impacts on shaping and reshaping those institutions.
The opening pages of this picture book get off to a wobbly start with comments such as “You know that feeling you get…when you see a wide open field that you can run through without worrying about traffic or cars? That’s freedom.” But as the book progresses, Shamir slowly steadies the craft toward that wide-open field of freedom. She notes the many obvious-to-us-now exclusivities that the founding political documents embodied—that the entitled, white, male authors did not extend freedom to enslaved African-Americans, Native Americans, and women—and encourages readers to learn to exercise vigilance and foresight. The gradual inclusion of these left-behind people paints a modestly rosy picture of their circumstances today, and the text seems to give up on explaining how Native Americans continue to be left behind. Still, a vital part of what makes freedom daunting is its constant motion, and that is ably expressed. Numerous boxed tidbits give substance to the bigger political picture. Who were the abolitionists and the suffragists, what were the Montgomery bus boycott and the “Uprising of 20,000”? Faulkner’s artwork conveys settings and emotions quite well, and his drawing of Ruby Bridges is about as darling as it gets. A helpful timeline and bibliography appear as endnotes.
A reasonably solid grounding in constitutional rights, their flexibility, lacunae, and hard-won corrections, despite a few misfires. (Informational picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-54728-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
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