A straightforward biography that pays tribute to an impressive and courageous life.
An informative profile of trailblazing African American journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells.
Author Duster introduces the book’s subject in the form of an illustrated family photo album, explaining that Wells was her great-grandmother. Duster chronicles the major events in Wells’ life, beginning with her birth into slavery in 1862 and ending with her death in 1931. At the age of 16, Wells’ parents died, leaving her to care for five younger siblings. She became a teacher, began to write about social and political issues of the time, and stood up for social justice. In 1892, the lynching of three of Wells’ friends further stoked the fire in her belly. Her writing grew bolder, and she began to speak out publicly against racial discrimination, gender inequality, and lynching at the cost of her livelihood and personal safety. The text incorporates a few details about Wells’ personal life and includes an overview of her professional accomplishments—her work with the suffrage movement, co-founding of the NAACP, and creation of the Negro Fellowship League. Freeman’s trademark multitextured digital art emotionalizes the matter-of-fact text. Photographs and pamphlets written by Wells appear in the artwork as illustrated facsimiles. The story is bookended by striking double spreads displaying stirring quotes attributed to Wells in enormous hand lettering. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A straightforward biography that pays tribute to an impressive and courageous life. (timeline, tributes) (Picture book biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-23946-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
A sweet and endearing feathered migration.
A relationship between a Latina grandmother and her mixed-race granddaughter serves as the frame to depict the ruby-throated hummingbird migration pattern.
In Granny’s lap, a girl is encouraged to “keep still” as the intergenerational pair awaits the ruby-throated hummingbirds with bowls of water in their hands. But like the granddaughter, the tz’unun—“the word for hummingbird in several [Latin American] languages”—must soon fly north. Over the next several double-page spreads, readers follow the ruby-throated hummingbird’s migration pattern from Central America and Mexico through the United States all the way to Canada. Davies metaphorically reunites the granddaughter and grandmother when “a visitor from Granny’s garden” crosses paths with the girl in New York City. Ray provides delicately hashed lines in the illustrations that bring the hummingbirds’ erratic flight pattern to life as they travel north. The watercolor palette is injected with vibrancy by the addition of gold ink, mirroring the hummingbirds’ flashing feathers in the slants of light. The story is supplemented by notes on different pages with facts about the birds such as their nest size, diet, and flight schedule. In addition, a note about ruby-throated hummingbirds supplies readers with detailed information on how ornithologists study and keep track of these birds.
A sweet and endearing feathered migration. (bibliography, index) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0538-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40.
From two Nobel Peace Prize winners, an invitation to look past sadness and loneliness to the joy that surrounds us.
Bobbing in the wake of 2016’s heavyweight Book of Joy (2016), this brief but buoyant address to young readers offers an earnest insight: “If you just focus on the thing that is making / you sad, then the sadness is all you see. / But if you look around, you will / see that joy is everywhere.” López expands the simply delivered proposal in fresh and lyrical ways—beginning with paired scenes of the authors as solitary children growing up in very different circumstances on (as they put it) “opposite sides of the world,” then meeting as young friends bonded by streams of rainbow bunting and going on to share their exuberantly hued joy with a group of dancers diverse in terms of age, race, culture, and locale while urging readers to do the same. Though on the whole this comes off as a bit bland (the banter and hilarity that characterized the authors’ recorded interchanges are absent here) and their advice just to look away from the sad things may seem facile in view of what too many children are inescapably faced with, still, it’s hard to imagine anyone in the world more qualified to deliver such a message than these two. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-48423-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
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