An absolutely beautiful story that penetrates the heart and seeds hope when there is little of it.
This gracefully written poem conveys the extensive amount of suffering that war brings.
A girl with brown skin and black hair who lives in a city enjoys her day, spending the morning with her family, then learning about volcanoes and drawing a bird at school. Then war suddenly erupts: “I can’t say the words that tell you / about the blackened hole / that had been my home. / All I can say is this: / War took everything. / War took everyone.” The child runs, walks in the cold, rides on packed trucks and in a boat that nearly sinks, but the war follows her: “It was underneath my skin…. / It was in the way that people didn’t smile, and turned away.” She finds a school where children are learning about volcanoes and drawing birds, but when she goes inside, the teacher says there is no chair for her. In an unexpected turn of events, the children of the school redraw the smile on the girl’s face and push back the war, one step at a time. Cobb’s muted, deceptively childlike illustrations match the poem’s understatement. An early spread of the gray, smoky chaos that destroys the girl’s world is echoed in a late spread as she huddles alone in an unwelcoming place. Both an afterword by the author and the illustrations suggest that the protagonist may be from Syria or Iraq and sought refuge in the U.K., but the story is, alas, more broadly universal.
An absolutely beautiful story that penetrates the heart and seeds hope when there is little of it. (Picture book. 6-12)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0173-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
Fast-paced and plot-driven.
In his latest, prolific author Gratz takes on Hitler’s Olympic Games.
When 13-year-old American gymnast Evie Harris arrives in Berlin to compete in the 1936 Olympic Games, she has one goal: stardom. If she can bring home a gold medal like her friend, the famous equestrian-turned-Hollywood-star Mary Brooks, she might be able to lift her family out of their Dust Bowl poverty. But someone slips a strange note under Evie’s door, and soon she’s dodging Heinz Fischer, the Hitler Youth member assigned to host her, and meeting strangers who want to make use of her gymnastic skills—to rob a bank. As the games progress, Evie begins to see the moral issues behind their sparkling facade—the antisemitism and racism inherent in Nazi ideology and the way Hitler is using the competition to support and promote these beliefs. And she also agrees to rob the bank. Gratz goes big on the Mission Impossible–style heist, which takes center stage over the actual competitions, other than Jesse Owens’ famous long jump. A lengthy and detailed author’s note provides valuable historical context, including places where Gratz adapted the facts for storytelling purposes (although there’s no mention of the fact that before 1952, Olympic equestrian sports were limited to male military officers). With an emphasis on the plot, many of the characters feel defined primarily by how they’re suffering under the Nazis, such as the fictional diver Ursula Diop, who was involuntarily sterilized for being biracial.
Fast-paced and plot-driven. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781338736106
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
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