History, biography, and orchard science presented in a neat, green, apple-shaped package.
The story of the woman behind the tart green apple.
In England, Maria Anna Smith finds work wherever it’s available, plowing, picking, pruning, shearing, shucking, shelling, or working as a midwife (historically called “Grannies”). But work is harder to find with the increasing use of machines to do farmwork. Finally she finds work in an orchard and learns all about harvesting and growing apples, which comes in handy when strangers from Australia arrive looking for experienced workers. (Brief notes throughout explore terms, processes, and history, such as the reasons for grafting.) Maria Anna, her husband, and their five children take a chance and board a ship for the four-month voyage. They scrimp, save, and work hard to be able to finally afford their own land, house, and orchard. By accident, the compost heap where Maria Anna mixed the scraps of her red apples with those of some Tasmanian crab apples sprouts, and she nurtures the seedling, which eventually produces disappointingly green apples that turn out to be surprisingly tart and delicious, and thus a new apple variety is born. McLeod’s illustrations bring history alive on the page, depicting the houses, clothing, and tough working conditions of Maria Anna’s time. All the people are light-skinned. A backmatter note directed at adults explains the impact of the British colonization of Australia on its Indigenous communities. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
History, biography, and orchard science presented in a neat, green, apple-shaped package. (selected bibliography, timeline) (Picture-book biography. 4-9)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781441339447
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Peter Pauper Press
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
Pretty but substance-free—which is probably not how any of this book’s subjects would like to be remembered.
Inspired by Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s stand against the appointment of Sen. Jeff Sessions as U.S. attorney general—and titled for Sen. Mitch McConnell’s stifling of same—glancing introductions to 13 American women who “persisted.”
Among the figures relatively familiar to the audience are Harriet Tubman, Helen Keller, and Ruby Bridges; among the more obscure are union organizer Clara Lemlich, physician Virginia Apgar, and Olympian Florence Griffith Joyner. Sonia Sotomayor and Oprah Winfrey are two readers may already have some consciousness of. The women have clearly been carefully selected to represent American diversity, although there are significant gaps—there are no Asian-American women, for instance—and the extreme brevity of the coverage leads to reductivism and erasure: Osage dancer Maria Tallchief is identified only as “Native American,” and lesbian Sally Ride’s sexual orientation is elided completely. Clinton’s prose is almost bloodless, running to such uninspiring lines as, about Margaret Chase Smith, “she persisted in championing women’s rights and more opportunities for women in the military, standing up for free speech and supporting space exploration.” Boiger does her best to compensate, creating airy watercolors full of movement for each double-page spread. Quotations are incorporated into illustrations—although the absence of dates and context leaves them unmoored. That’s the overall feeling readers will get, as the uniformity of presentation and near-total lack of detail makes this overview so broad as to be ineffectual. The failure to provide any sources for further information should the book manage to pique readers’ interests simply exacerbates the problem.
Pretty but substance-free—which is probably not how any of this book’s subjects would like to be remembered. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: May 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5247-4172-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Memorable art earns this biography a respectable place on the shelf.
George Washington Carver tended a secret garden of flowers before becoming known for his skill in agriculture.
The book opens in 1921 as Carver addresses the U.S. Congress, astounding them with dozens of uses for the peanut. The narration then takes readers back to Carver’s childhood to discover how he reached that career highlight. As a child, he loved flowers, but he was warned not to waste time on plants that couldn’t be eaten or sold, so he kept his colorful garden hidden in the woods. Shut out of schools because he was black, he studied nature independently and learned through experimentation. Eventually, he started caring for neighbors’ sick plants, becoming known as “the Plant Doctor.” At 12, he left the farm on which he was raised and attained a formal education, after which he taught students at the Tuskegee Institute and farmers with a mobile classroom mounted on a wagon. This journey through Carver’s childhood and accomplishments ends with Carver’s simple but memorable words, “Regard Nature. Revere Nature. Respect Nature.” The substantial text holds readers on each spread long enough to appreciate not only the subject matter of the painted illustrations, but Morrison’s artistic techniques—strong strokes and careful dots, artful combinations of textures and shapes—which create lush forest scenes and portraitlike human faces and forms. The childhood story feels more cohesive than the final pages, which list his adult accomplishments but lack the narrative thread.
Memorable art earns this biography a respectable place on the shelf. (timeline, bibliography, further reading) (Picture book/biography. 4-9)Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-243015-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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