Sweeping and grand, this personal take on a familiar story is an engaging success.
A much-longer-than-typical picture book about the Mayflower’s first landing in America and its aftermath, told through the eyes of one of its passengers.
Based on historical fact, this feast of a book, the first illustrator Lynch has authored as well, will captivate readers from its opening double-page spread. Lynch’s masterful watercolor and gouache illustrations—harkening back to the grand style of Howard Pyle and N.C. Wyeth—bring to life the true story of indentured servant John Howland, who sailed on the Mayflower with his master in 1620. Howland’s narration relates the difficult ocean crossing and how, in a storm, he is swept overboard but miraculously rescued. Once land is reached, however, Howland and the other settlers find their difficulties have begun in earnest. Winter weather, lack of food, sickness, and aggression toward the native peoples all contribute to the demise of more than half the original settlers. But spring comes, the native people offer help, and the familiar Thanksgiving story is broached. What sets this book apart from myriad Pilgrim stories is Howland’s personal point of view, which helps readers enter into the tenor of the time, when the settlers’ religious faith both motivated and sustained them, and the dramatic illustrations with their expert play of expression, composition, and light.
Sweeping and grand, this personal take on a familiar story is an engaging success. (bibliography, author’s note) (Picture book. 6-14)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-7636-6584-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A solid introduction to a lesser-known sports heroine.
Malaspina’s free verse tells the story of how Alice Coachman went from her Georgia hometown to the 1948 London Olympics, becoming the first African-American woman to win an Olympic gold medal.
“Sit on the porch and / be a lady,” Papa would scold young Alice. But Alice preferred racing down the road, “Bare feet flying, / long legs spinning, / braids flapping / in the wind.” She’d play basketball with the boys at recess, make her own high-jump bar with rags tied to sticks and practice, practice, practice. She dreamed of soaring, of touching the sky, and when Coach Abbott invited her to enroll at Tuskegee to train with the Tigerettes, she saw her dreams come closer. She traveled with the Golden Tigerettes and later set a high-jump record at the Olympic Trials. At the Olympics, the American women had no medals going into the final event, the high jump. It was down to two women, and Alice won, setting a new Olympic record. Velazquez’s oil-on–watercolor-paper illustrations capture the long-legged grace of Coachman and the power of her jumps, most dramatically her Olympic medal–winning jump in a close-up double-page spread against an Impressionistically rendered crowd in the background.
A solid introduction to a lesser-known sports heroine. (author’s note, bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 6-9)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8075-8035-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
She said, “Failure is impossible,” and she was right, but unfortunately her steely determination does not come through in...
Susan B. Anthony worked to win women the right to vote her whole long life, but she did not live to see it done.
Wallner uses her flat decorative style and rich matte colors to depict Susan B. Anthony’s life, layering on details: Susan catching snowflakes behind her parents’ house; working in her father’s mill (briefly) and then departing school when the money ran out; writing at her desk; speaking passionately in front of small groups and rowdy crowds. It’s a little too wordy and a little less than engaging in describing a life in which Anthony traveled alone, hired her own halls, spoke tirelessly about women’s suffrage, published, created forums where women could speak freely and was arrested for registering to vote. Her life-long friendship with suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton is touched on, as are the virulent attacks against her ideas and her person. She died in 1906. Votes for women did not come to pass in the United States until 1920.
She said, “Failure is impossible,” and she was right, but unfortunately her steely determination does not come through in this book. (timeline, bibliography, source notes) (Picture book/biography. 7-10)Pub Date: March 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8234-1953-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2012
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