Object of a hit song, a 1961 film and studies for adults, but not a separate profile for younger readers, Ira Hayes was less a “true American hero,” as Nelson argues, than a tragic figure incapable of handling the fame that was thrust upon him. A shy, lonely lad raised on Arizona’s Gila River Indian Reservation, Hayes found his place serving as “an honorable warrior” in the Pacific battlefield and was one of the WWII marines captured in the famous Iwo Jima photograph. He returned to the States a celebrity, took to drink to help deal with his feelings of isolation and died an alcoholic less than ten years later. Nelson tells the tale twice—once in simple language, accompanying dappled acrylic views of a bronze-skinned lad with downcast eyes, posing in and out of uniform, and again at the end in smaller type, with photos and more background detail. Hayes’s life adds yet another sad chapter to the history of this country’s treatment of Native Americans, but other than his courage as a soldier, this gives children no particular reason to admire, or even care particularly, about him. (source list) (Picture book/biography. 8-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-58430-263-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
Ringgold’s biography of Rosa Parks packs substantial material into a few pages, but with a light touch, and with the ring of authenticity that gives her act of weary resistance all the respect it deserves. Narrating the book is the bus that Parks took that morning 45 years ago; it recounts the signal events in Parks’s life to a young girl who boarded it to go to school. A decent amount of the material will probably be new to children, for Parks is so intimately associated with the Montgomery Bus Boycott that her work with the NAACP before the bus incident is often overlooked, as is her later role as a community activist in Detroit with Congressman John Conyers. Ringgold, through the bus, also informs readers of Parks’s youth in rural Alabama, where Klansmen and nightriders struck fear into the lives of African-Americans. These experiences make her refusal to release her seat all the more courageous, for the consequences of resistance were not gentle. All the events are depicted in emotive naive artwork that underscores their truth; Ringgold delivers Parks’s story without hyperbole, but rather as a life lived with pride, conviction, and consequence. (Picture book/biography. 5-9)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-689-81892-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
From Kroll (Lewis and Clark, 1994, etc.), a handsomely illustrated biography that introduces a fascinating historical figure and will make readers yearn for more information. The facts are covered, including Fulton’s stints as sign painter, air-gun inventor, and apprentice jeweler; Kroll states clearly which details cannot be pinned down, and the probable order of events and incidents. The text is informative and lively, although in places the transitions are abrupt, e.g., one of the only references to Fulton’s personal life—“Meanwhile, on January 7, 1808, Fulton had married Harriet Livingston. She bore him four children”—quickly reverts to details on the building of boats. Warm gold-toned paintings convey a sense of times past and complement the text. Especially appealing are the depictions of the steamships. A welcome volume. (chronology) (Picture book/biography. 6-10)
Pub Date: March 15, 1999
ISBN: 0-8234-1433-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
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