Electrifying.
A cycle of free verse poems carries readers from 1773 to “tomorrow,” focusing on the lives of six Black Americans whose experiences represent centuries of ferocious resistance to extraordinary oppression.
These figures are Ona Judge, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barack Obama. A prefatory note explains to readers that this is “a work of creative nonfiction told in…story-poems—flash lines of verse, prose, and quotes—anchored in historical facts.” The author previously demonstrated his straight nonfiction chops with Now or Never! (2017), his splendid account of Black journalists in the Civil War; here he proves equally adept at the more emotive form of poetry. Rooting the events presented in documented history, Shepard distills them into concentrated bursts of truth. In the section on Wells and her decadeslong campaign against lynching, he writes: “More than two hundred Black / children, women, and men were dead / in a two-day attack by Whites / from three states. / History called it a race riot not a massacre / as if the sharecroppers / had burned their own bodies.” Christie’s section-heading black-and-white scenes are as starkly powerful as the poems. The information presented is kaleidoscopic rather than comprehensive; readers will come away with clear senses of who these individuals were and what motivated them, while formidable backmatter, including a lengthy timeline, further reading, bibliography, and source notes, provides avenues for them to fill in the gaps.
Electrifying. (index) (Verse nonfiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2023
ISBN: 9781662680663
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Calkins Creek/Astra Books for Young Readers
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
School violence revisited. In Todd Strasser’s Give a Boy a Gun (2000), the school-violence story was raw and powerful. Ron Koertge’s verse treatment, The Brimstone Journals (2001), kept the story innovative and fresh. Over 10 years later, Van Cleave’s debut novel in verse is a didactic rehashing with uninspiring poetry. Andy has already been bullied for the last six years, but his situation grows worse when he starts his freshman year at the same high school where his father works as a janitor. Noticing other losers, like “equal / opportunity / angry” Sue and bookworm Nicholas, the teen turns his attention to Blake, who has undergone a metamorphosis since losing his soldier dad in the Iraqi war. As rumors about STDs, alcohol and sexual orientation travel the corridors, nothing garners as much attention as the rumor that Blake is hiding a gun in his locker. To win favor with his crush, Becky Ann, Andy steals his father’s keys to open Blake’s locker and retrieve the gun. While he doesn’t find anything suspicious in the locker, he discovers that Blake does have a firearm and final plans for his classmates. At first, Andy’s knowledge and newfound friendship with Blake gives him “rebel courage,” but soon he realizes that he has a difficult decision to make as Blake’s date for destruction approaches. A concluding teacher’s guide confirms the intended use of this tired-feeling novel. (Fiction. 12-16)
Pub Date: March 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8027-2186-0
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
Even rabid fans of Lennon or the 1960s will find new information and angles in this searching study.
On the verge of her 80th birthday (Feb. 18, 2013), Ono steps out of her iconic late husband’s shadow for a sympathetic profile.
The authors present her as a groundbreaking creative artist whose work has been misunderstood, not to say derided, for decades and who was unjustly vilified as the woman who broke up the Beatles. They describe a comfortable upbringing in Japan and the United States, childhood experiences in World War II and artistic development as part of New York’s avant-garde scene in the 1950s and early ’60s. The book goes on to chronicle her relationships with various husbands, including “soul mate” John Lennon, and her two children, life as a peace-activist celebrity in the ’70s, and (in much less detail) her activities, honors and exhibitions after Lennon’s death. The account is occasionally trite (“Yoko and John were stressed to the max”) or platitudinous, and it’s unlikely to persuade younger (or any) readers to appreciate Yoko’s creations—which run to works like an 80-minute film of naked rumps walking by and sets of chess pieces that are all the same color—as great art. Nevertheless, it does impart a good sense of conceptual and performance art’s purposes and expressions along with a detailed portrait of a complex woman who for several reasons has a significant place in our cultural history.
Even rabid fans of Lennon or the 1960s will find new information and angles in this searching study. (photos, timeline to 2009, resource lists) (Biography. 12-15)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0444-4
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
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