Sincere, accessible advice and inspiration.
A collection of letters to the next generation.
This anthology highlights an inclusive international community of women and girls, including those with disabilities and who are LGBTQ+. A one-to-three–page spread for each entry makes for quick reading. While most are traditional letters, a few take the form of poems. Each includes at least one color photograph of its writer. The contributors are varied in their backgrounds, passions, achievements, and advice; some are well-known names, like Melinda French Gates and Drew Barrymore, while others will be new to most readers. Tegan Vincent-Cooke, a Black British quadriplegic dressage rider, writes about facing discrimination and finding acceptance as a disabled woman. Pranjal Jain, the founder of journalism nonprofit Global Girlhood, shares her story of writing to President Barack Obama in seventh grade, asking him to change the Constitution so that she could run for president one day despite being an Indian immigrant and how that experience shaped her. Some letter writers are still teens themselves, like Japanese Canadian actor Momona Tamada, who discusses breaking stereotypes and gives advice to readers about trying new things and finding support. All the letters highlight women’s successes and struggles in both their personal and professional lives, allowing for points of connection with readers. Bright graphics and ample white space contribute to the attractiveness of the volume.
Sincere, accessible advice and inspiration. (about Room to Read, Rebel Girls app, photo credits) (Nonfiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781953424471
Page Count: 420
Publisher: Rebel Girls
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
With young readers diagnosed with anxiety in ever increasing numbers, this book offers a necessary mirror to many.
Young Raina is 9 when she throws up for the first time that she remembers, due to a stomach bug. Even a year later, when she is in fifth grade, she fears getting sick.
Raina begins having regular stomachaches that keep her home from school. She worries about sharing food with her friends and eating certain kinds of foods, afraid of getting sick or food poisoning. Raina’s mother enrolls her in therapy. At first Raina isn’t sure about seeing a therapist, but over time she develops healthy coping mechanisms to deal with her stress and anxiety. Her therapist helps her learn to ground herself and relax, and in turn she teaches her classmates for a school project. Amping up the green, wavy lines to evoke Raina’s nausea, Telgemeier brilliantly produces extremely accurate visual representations of stress and anxiety. Thought bubbles surround Raina in some panels, crowding her with anxious “what if”s, while in others her negative self-talk appears to be literally crushing her. Even as she copes with anxiety disorder and what is eventually diagnosed as mild irritable bowel syndrome, she experiences the typical stresses of school life, going from cheer to panic in the blink of an eye. Raina is white, and her classmates are diverse; one best friend is Korean American.
With young readers diagnosed with anxiety in ever increasing numbers, this book offers a necessary mirror to many. (Graphic memoir. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-545-85251-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share.
A multiaward–winning author recalls her childhood and the joy of becoming a writer.
Writing in free verse, Woodson starts with her 1963 birth in Ohio during the civil rights movement, when America is “a country caught / / between Black and White.” But while evoking names such as Malcolm, Martin, James, Rosa and Ruby, her story is also one of family: her father’s people in Ohio and her mother’s people in South Carolina. Moving south to live with her maternal grandmother, she is in a world of sweet peas and collards, getting her hair straightened and avoiding segregated stores with her grandmother. As the writer inside slowly grows, she listens to family stories and fills her days and evenings as a Jehovah’s Witness, activities that continue after a move to Brooklyn to reunite with her mother. The gift of a composition notebook, the experience of reading John Steptoe’s Stevieand Langston Hughes’ poetry, and seeing letters turn into words and words into thoughts all reinforce her conviction that “[W]ords are my brilliance.” Woodson cherishes her memories and shares them with a graceful lyricism; her lovingly wrought vignettes of country and city streets will linger long after the page is turned.
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share. (Memoir/poetry. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-25251-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
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