The illustrator is at his best in the wordless full-bleed doublespreads interspersed throughout the book, which set a...
Nelson brings her signature poetic treatment of history to this outstanding collaboration with illustrator Pinkney about a racially integrated “all-girl swing band” that toured the United States during World War II.
Comprehensive backmatter grounds the poems and illustrations in research while inviting reflection on the creative process. The book proper is a stellar integration of art and text: Each poem adopts the retrospective voices of the band members’ instruments, while watercolor illustrations enhanced with collage elements place their music-making in rich period detail that evokes the war, Rosie the Riveter, segregation and internment camps. The poet doesn’t miss a beat as she fittingly employs swinging, triple meters capturing the essence of big-band sound and highlighting the transcendent joy that the Sweethearts’ music brought to audiences at the Apollo, the Cotton Club, in smaller venues and even overseas in a postwar USO concert.
The illustrator is at his best in the wordless full-bleed doublespreads interspersed throughout the book, which set a contemplative pace that invites flipping back and forth through the pages documenting the Sweethearts’ travels, triumphs and travails. (Picture book/poetry. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3187-5
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
A blend of fact and fiction in both text and pictures add up to a resistible invitation to create coded messages by substituting Egyptian hieroglyphics for plain language. In the perfunctory plot, an archeologist acquires a mysterious, veiled helper who guides him from one simple written clue to the next, leading ultimately to an artifact that was stolen and hidden away thousands of years ago. Along the way there’s plenty of opportunity to explain ancient Egyptian writing and funerary customs, to fill page space with small photos or images of surviving or reconstructed tombs, sarcophagi, painted murals and statuary and to practice translating the aforementioned clues. The historical information is easily available elsewhere, and though the downloadable typeface on the embedded CD will make the creation of new messages much less tedious than having to draw hieroglyphics by hand, even dedicated fans of codes and ciphers aren’t likely to give this more than a quick once-over. (Fact/fiction blend. 11-13)
Pub Date: June 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7534-6411-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Kingfisher
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
paper 0-8160-3904-6 About 50 new entries, plus occupational and chronological indexes, enhance this new edition of The Biographical Dictionary of Black Americans (1992, not reviewed). The 230 profiles comprise a representative sample of prominent African-Americans born after 1700, and are detailed enough for brief middle-grade reports. Libraries might consider this compact, utilitarian volume as a replacement for the original, or as an alternative to the four-volume African-American Biography (1994). (bibliography) (Nonfiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8160-3903-8
Page Count: 298
Publisher: Facts On File
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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