An accessible introduction to a little-known but life-changing victory for disabled children.
Co-author Leffler, who has cerebral palsy, explains how children with disabilities won the right to attend public school.
At age 3, Leffler entered public school, where—like “other kids with disabilities all around America”—she learned and played “side by side” with her friends. But, she learned, “it hadn’t always been that way.” In the early 1970s, public schools “said NO to millions of children who wanted to go to school”; disabled children were segregated in special schools, attended inferior classes, or simply stayed home. In an eye-opening double-page spread packed with racially diverse, cartoon-style children, a child notes, “There’s about 1,000 kids on this page”—a fraction of the 8 million disabled children across the United States being denied an education. Drawing on the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case banning racial school segregation, the determined parents of seven children with disabilities—all of whom present as kids of color—filed a class-action lawsuit: Mills v. Board of Education of the District of Columbia. Speech-balloon dialogue presents parents’ pleas, school authorities’ opposition, and lawyers’ arguments. Finally, on Aug. 1,1972, Judge Joseph C. Waddy ruled that “children with disabilities must be given a free public education,” spurring similar federal court cases. Illustrator and co-author Cocca-Leffler warmly depicts figures with an array of skin tones; some children are blind, and some use wheelchairs. Leffler presents White.
An accessible introduction to a little-known but life-changing victory for disabled children. (note, timeline, authors' note, attorney's note, sources) (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8075-3518-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
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
It’s a bit sketchy of historical detail, but it’s coherent, inspirational, and engaging without indulging in rapturous...
A first introduction to the iconic civil rights activist.
“She was very little and very brave, and she always tried to do what was right.” Without many names or any dates, Kaiser traces Parks’ life and career from childhood to later fights for “fair schools, jobs, and houses for black people” as well as “voting rights, women’s rights and the rights of people in prison.” Though her refusal to change seats and the ensuing bus boycott are misleadingly presented as spontaneous acts of protest, young readers will come away with a clear picture of her worth as a role model. Though recognizable thanks to the large wire-rimmed glasses Parks sports from the outset as she marches confidently through Antelo’s stylized illustrations, she looks childlike throughout (as characteristic of this series), and her skin is unrealistically darkened to match the most common shade visible on other African-American figures. In her co-published Emmeline Pankhurst (illustrated by Ana Sanfelippo), Kaiser likewise simplistically implies that Great Britain led the way in granting universal women’s suffrage but highlights her subject’s courageous quest for justice, and Isabel Sánchez Vegara caps her profile of Audrey Hepburn (illustrated by Amaia Arrazola) with the moot but laudable claim that “helping people across the globe” (all of whom in the pictures are dark-skinned children) made Hepburn “happier than acting or dancing ever had.” All three titles end with photographs and timelines over more-detailed recaps plus at least one lead to further information.
It’s a bit sketchy of historical detail, but it’s coherent, inspirational, and engaging without indulging in rapturous flights of hyperbole. (Picture book/biography. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-78603-018-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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