From beginning to end, fans will feel connected to the dynamic style of the Globetrotters and how they influenced American...
Five serious African American basketball players with no opportunity to play in the top teams due to the racism of the 1920s took their basketball skills on the road, calling themselves the Harlem Globe Trotters (they became the Globetrotters sometime in the ’30s). White America had a hard time coping with the Trotters’ beating their teams—until the Trotters changed the way they played. They turned their games into theatrics, emphasizing slapstick and hilarity while at the same time honing their skills till “they played the most breathtaking, groundbreaking ball the country had ever seen.” In 1948, Globetrotters finally got an opportunity to challenge the Minnesota Lakers, the best team in the Whites-only NBA. The Globetrotters’ win caused the entire NBA to reconsider their recruitment policy. Slade has done careful, thorough research, easily engaging young readers as they learn about the Globetrotters’ groundbreaking history. Veteran illustrator Tate creates constant movement, visually underscoring the title with dynamic (sometimes impossible) perspectives and basketballs caught in stop-motion fashion as they fly across the court. Robust backmatter bolsters the account, including a detailed timeline that’s thoughtfully printed on the inside pages of the endpapers so that pasted-down jacket flaps will not obscure any of it.
From beginning to end, fans will feel connected to the dynamic style of the Globetrotters and how they influenced American history. (further information, artist’s note, selected sources, photos) (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-316-48167-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2020
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
This heartwarming story of a boy and his beloved dog opens the door for further study of our 16th president.
A slice of Abraham Lincoln’s childhood life is explored through a fictionalized anecdote about his dog Honey.
When 7-year-old Abe rescues a golden-brown dog with a broken leg, he takes the pup home to the Lincolns’ cabin in Knob Creek, Kentucky. Honey follows Abe everywhere, including trailing after his owner into a deep cave. When Abe gets stuck between rocks, Honey goes for help and leads a search party back to the trapped boy for a dramatic rescue. The source for this story was a book incorporating the memories of Abe’s boyhood friend, explained in an author’s note. The well-paced text includes invented dialogue attributed to Abe and his parents. Abe’s older sister, Sarah, is not mentioned in the text and is shown in the illustrations as a little girl younger than Abe. All the characters present white save for one black man in the rescue crew. An oversized format and multiple double-page spreads provide plenty of space for cartoon-style illustrations of the Lincoln cabin, the surrounding countryside, and the spooky cave where Abe was trapped. This story focuses on the incident in the cave and Abe’s rescue; a more complete look at Lincoln’s life is included in an appended timeline and the author’s note, both of which include references to Lincoln’s kindness to animals and to other pets he owned.
This heartwarming story of a boy and his beloved dog opens the door for further study of our 16th president. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-269900-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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