Nickel’s homage to this congenial, hardworking man and his renowned snack is a celebration of ingenuity and kismet.
On a platter or in a bowl, cheesy nachos are everywhere! But where did they come from?
Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya was working his shift at the Club Victoria in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico—across the Rio Grande from Eagle Pass, Texas—when Mamie Finan, a regular Anglo customer, walked in with some friends, challenging Nacho to come up with something different for them to try. Nacho scrambled around the empty restaurant kitchen until he spotted some freshly made tortilla chips. Recalling his foster mother’s quesadillas, he sprinkled cheddar cheese on the chips and crowned them with gleaming slices of pickled jalapeños. A few minutes in the oven, and history was made! Since that fateful day in 1940, celebrities from both sides of the border—even President Lyndon B. Johnson—have clamored for a plate of Nacho’s Special. Eighty years later, minus the apostrophe and “special,” people the world over dig happily into servings of cheesy, crunchy, spicy—nachos. Nickel’s thorough research, including communications with the descendants of the principals, brings to life the man behind the world’s favorite cheesy bites. Dominguez’s detailed facial expressions and vibrant, full-bleed, double-page period illustrations successfully capture the people, the era, and its fashions.
Nickel’s homage to this congenial, hardworking man and his renowned snack is a celebration of ingenuity and kismet. (sources, citations, biographical note, author’s note) (Picture book/biography. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 11, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-62014-369-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
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
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care.
In 1977, the oil carrier Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into a formerly pristine Alaskan ocean inlet, killing millions of birds, animals, and fish. Despite a cleanup, crude oil is still there.
The Winters foretold the destructive powers of the atomic bomb allusively in The Secret Project (2017), leaving the actuality to the backmatter. They make no such accommodations to young audiences in this disturbing book. From the dark front cover, on which oily blobs conceal a seabird, to the rescuer’s sad face on the back, the mother-son team emphasizes the disaster. A relatively easy-to-read and poetically heightened text introduces the situation. Oil is pumped from the Earth “all day long, all night long, / day after day, year after year” in “what had been unspoiled land, home to Native people // and thousands of caribou.” The scale of extraction is huge: There’s “a giant pipeline” leading to “enormous ships.” Then, crash. Rivers of oil gush out over three full-bleed wordless pages. Subsequent scenes show rocks, seabirds, and sea otters covered with oil. Finally, 30 years later, animals have returned to a cheerful scene. “But if you lift a rock… // oil / seeps / up.” For an adult reader, this is heartbreaking. How much more difficult might this be for an animal-loving child?
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care. (author’s note, further reading) (Informational picture book. 9-12)Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3077-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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