An often informative introduction to an underdiscussed historical figure.
An overlooked real-life hero of the American Revolution gets her due in Lawson’s illustrated children’s book.
There’s more to Anna Stone than meets the eye of her young grandchildren visiting her home in 1825. They see her as merely an unexciting older relative, but when it’s time to tell a story one cold January night, they’re surprised when their grandfather, Benjamin, asks her to “Tell them about the time you saved General Washington’s job and made sure we won the American Revolution!” Anna was a wife and mother to three children when Benjamin and her other male relatives left to fight in the Continental Army. Like other women, she did her part for the war effort by helping with what would have ordinarily been the men’s tasks at home, as well as making clothing for the troops and boycotting British goods. Her role in the war would take her far from home, however, after Washington’s troops found, upon arrival at Valley Forge, near Philadelphia, in 1778, that the British had destroyed their supply sources. Anna knew that Benjamin was among the soldiers stranded, so she volunteered to bring supplies to them from Virginia on horseback. She’s tasked by a congressman to bring a secret message for Washington, as well, and is hunted by “a frightening-looking fellow” as she rides to Pennsylvania. Lawson’s novel, her first for children, follows Answering Liberty’s Call (2021), her recounting of Anna’s thrilling and dangerous true story for an adult audience. (In an author’s note, Lawson intriguingly notes that she’s related to the real-life Anna Stone.) This book could serve well as a brief, educational introduction to the role of women in the Revolutionary War for elementary school-age readers. Some sections seem oversimplified, such as the claim that Anna was able to bring on her horse, alone, enough supplies to “stretch” multiple soldiers’ “rations for weeks.” Coriell’s full-color cartoon illustrations of the action are peppered throughout but add little to the story.
An often informative introduction to an underdiscussed historical figure.Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2023
ISBN: 9798987612309
Page Count: 60
Publisher: Gray Lion Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit.
The bubble-helmeted feline explains what rockets do and the role they have played in sending people (and animals) into space.
Addressing a somewhat younger audience than in previous outings (Professor Astro Cat’s Frontiers of Space, 2013, etc.), Astro Cat dispenses with all but a light shower of “factoroids” to describe how rockets work. A highly selective “History of Space Travel” follows—beginning with a crew of fruit flies sent aloft in 1947, later the dog Laika (her dismal fate left unmentioned), and the human Yuri Gagarin. Then it’s on to Apollo 11 in 1969; the space shuttles Discovery, Columbia, and Challenger (the fates of the latter two likewise elided); the promise of NASA’s next-gen Orion and the Space Launch System; and finally vague closing references to other rockets in the works for local tourism and, eventually, interstellar travel. In the illustrations the spacesuited professor, joined by a mouse and cat in similar dress, do little except float in space and point at things. Still, the art has a stylish retro look, and portraits of Sally Ride and Guion Bluford diversify an otherwise all-white, all-male astronaut corps posing heroically or riding blocky, geometric spacecraft across starry reaches.
Energetic enough to carry younger rocketeers off the launch pad if not into a very high orbit. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-911171-55-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Flying Eye Books
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A picture book more than worthy of sharing the shelf with Alan Schroeder and Jerry Pinkney’s Minty (1996) and Carole Boston...
A memorable, lyrical reverse-chronological walk through the life of an American icon.
In free verse, Cline-Ransome narrates the life of Harriet Tubman, starting and ending with a train ride Tubman takes as an old woman. “But before wrinkles formed / and her eyes failed,” Tubman could walk tirelessly under a starlit sky. Cline-Ransome then describes the array of roles Tubman played throughout her life, including suffragist, abolitionist, Union spy, and conductor on the Underground Railroad. By framing the story around a literal train ride, the Ransomes juxtapose the privilege of traveling by rail against Harriet’s earlier modes of travel, when she repeatedly ran for her life. Racism still abounds, however, for she rides in a segregated train. While the text introduces readers to the details of Tubman’s life, Ransome’s use of watercolor—such a striking departure from his oil illustrations in many of his other picture books—reveals Tubman’s humanity, determination, drive, and hope. Ransome’s lavishly detailed and expansive double-page spreads situate young readers in each time and place as the text takes them further into the past.
A picture book more than worthy of sharing the shelf with Alan Schroeder and Jerry Pinkney’s Minty (1996) and Carole Boston Weatherford and Kadir Nelson’s Moses (2006). (Picture book/biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2047-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
