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
Richly illustrated, this deserves a place alongside other important depictions of this story.
One of the most decorated nonfiction writers in the field brings his style to a well-told story of the struggle for voting rights in the American South.
Fifty years ago, as the civil rights movement took hold, the attempts to ensure African-American access to the vote increasingly took center stage. A newly passed Civil Rights Act did not guarantee voting rights, so activists in the South continued to press for them at both the state and federal levels. The barriers to voting—poll taxes, literacy tests, limits on registration—were difficult to overcome. Physical abuse and financial intimidation also kept people from the polls. Activist churches were subject to firebombs and burning. Selma, Alabama, became a flashpoint. As Freedman begins his narrative, student activism had propelled teachers and other middle-class blacks to get involved. The death of an unarmed demonstrator drove organizers to plan a march from Selma to the state’s capital, Montgomery—an attempt that resulted in “Bloody Sunday,” one of the single most violent moments of the movement, and served to prod action on the Voting Rights Act in Congress. Freedman’s meticulous research and elegant prose brings freshness to a story that has been told many times. Familiar figures populate the account, but they are joined by many lesser-known figures as well.
Richly illustrated, this deserves a place alongside other important depictions of this story. (timeline, bibliography, photo credits, source notes, index) (Nonfiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2921-9
Page Count: 83
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: July 31, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2014
Compelling reading for art lovers.
The intertwined creative and personal lives of two trailblazing artists whose lifestyles were as avant-garde as their work.
The creative and personal lives of Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera were dramatically linked from the time they met. They initially bonded over Frida’s budding attempts at painting, but they soon fell in love. Frida’s life was complicated by injuries she carried from a serious streetcar accident that doctors had not expected her to survive. Diego was a complex man, devoted to his art and communist politics while unwilling to remain faithful to Frida. Their tumultuous relationship and her broken body were both important influences on Kahlo’s deeply personal work, while Rivera’s extensive murals and other works reflected his politics and love of the Mexican people. Reef offers a balanced and cleareyed examination of this powerful relationship, contextualizing it against the backdrop of national politics in Mexico and international change ushered in by the Great Depression and World War II. The account also cogently reveals how these shifts affected the artistic world as well. The clear narrative deftly handles complex political and artistic ideas and sheds light on how the couple’s unusual connection enhanced and occasionally detracted from their work. The many photographs and examples of the artists’ work neatly complement the text.
Compelling reading for art lovers. (timeline, source notes, bibliography; index, not seen) (Nonfiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-547-82184-9
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2014
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