by Mei Yu ; illustrated by Mei Yu ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 2, 2024
Charming, funny, and full of heart.
YouTube artist and content creator Yu makes her graphic novel debut with a story inspired by her family’s move from their native China to Canada.
Drawn with an exuberant smile and bouncing ponytail, young Mei is initially thrilled to leave home. She imagines that in Canada she’ll have plenty of new friends and a spacious bedroom—and that she’ll encounter cuddly polar bears. Reality proves to be much more difficult. Mei neither speaks nor reads English, and, upon disembarking from the plane, she realizes that the language barrier is much scarier than she could have anticipated. Things only get worse when she arrives for her first day of school. She’s unable to communicate with the other students or even to ask to go to the bathroom; her day is full of fear and humiliation. While Mei’s struggles with language form the central and most fully developed conflict, she must also navigate other challenges, from her first bologna sandwich to the realization that her parents, too, are struggling to adapt to their new home. Yu’s manga-style art is full of silly and dramatic flourishes that perfectly capture the overwhelming experience of culture shock. Mei uses creative thinking and her love of art to find her way, and readers will rejoice at the winsome hero’s triumphs.
Charming, funny, and full of heart. (note about spelling, author’s note, English-Mandarin Chinese glossary, bonus story) (Graphic memoir. 7-10)Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781454945475
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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by Andrew Young & Paula Young Shelton ; illustrated by Gordon C. James ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 2, 2022
A pivotal moment in a child’s life, at once stirring and authentically personal.
Before growing up to become a major figure in the civil rights movement, a boy finds a role model.
Buffing up a childhood tale told by her renowned father, Young Shelton describes how young Andrew saw scary men marching in his New Orleans neighborhood (“It sounded like they were yelling ‘Hi, Hitler!’ ”). In response to his questions, his father took him to see a newsreel of Jesse Owens (“a runner who looked like me”) triumphing in the 1936 Olympics. “Racism is a sickness,” his father tells him. “We’ve got to help folks like that.” How? “Well, you can start by just being the best person you can be,” his father replies. “It’s what you do that counts.” In James’ hazy chalk pastels, Andrew joins racially diverse playmates (including a White child with an Irish accent proudly displaying the nickel he got from his aunt as a bribe to stop playing with “those Colored boys”) in tag and other games, playing catch with his dad, sitting in the midst of a cheering crowd in the local theater’s segregated balcony, and finally visualizing himself pelting down a track alongside his new hero—“head up, back straight, eyes focused,” as a thematically repeated line has it, on the finish line. An afterword by Young Shelton explains that she retold this story, told to her many times growing up, drawing from conversations with Young and from her own research; family photos are also included. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A pivotal moment in a child’s life, at once stirring and authentically personal. (illustrator’s note) (Autobiographical picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-545-55465-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
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by Brad Meltzer ; illustrated by Christopher Eliopoulos ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 9, 2024
Quick and slick, but ably makes its case.
The distinguished jurist stands tall as a role model.
Not literally tall, of course—not only was she actually tiny but, as with all the other bobbleheaded caricatures in the “Ordinary People Change the World” series, Ginsburg, sporting huge eyeglasses on an outsize head over black judicial robes even in childhood, remains a doll-like figure in all of Eliopoulos’ cartoon scenes. It’s in the frank acknowledgment of the sexism and antisemitism she resolutely overcame as she went from reading about “real female heroes” to becoming one—and also the clear statement of how she so brilliantly applied the principle of “tikkun olam” (“repairing the world”) in her career to the notion that women and men should have the same legal rights—that her stature comes clear. For all the brevity of his profile, Meltzer spares some attention for her private life, too (“This is Marty. He loved me, and he loved my brains. So I married him!”). Other judicial activists of the past and present, all identified and including the current crop of female Supreme Court justices, line up with a diversely hued and abled group of younger followers to pay tribute in final scenes. “Fight for the things you care about,” as a typically savvy final quote has it, “but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”
Quick and slick, but ably makes its case. (timeline, photos, source list, further reading) (Picture-book biography. 7-9)Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2024
ISBN: 9780593533338
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Rocky Pond Books/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
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