An excellent, entertaining choice to highlight social-emotional skills, history, and STEM.
“Who created instant messages and changed the world forever?”
Lively, fact-based text and energetic, kid-friendly illustrations capture the feeling of a past era to present the story of frustrated artist and creative inventor Samuel Morse. Setting the scene quickly so youngsters can jump right in, Maurer good-naturedly portrays Morse’s artistic snobbery and vision, his not-so-successful experiments with invention, his interest in innovation, his willingness to take risks, his inquiring mind, and his resilience, presenting her subject as a real person to identify with rather than a flawless hero to be coolly admired. This is not a tale of diversity; the cast of characters is primarily male and white, though there are some women and people of color in the background. Periodic questions about Morse’s ideas appear within the story, clarifying Morse’s historical role and allowing for the repeated, titular refrain: “Samuel Morse, that’s who!” By breaking down the invention of the telegraph into steps that readers will easily understand, the text effectively explains how the invention works as well as how it came to be, and young readers and listeners just may be inspired to try some inventing of their own. Backmatter includes a timeline, bibliography, additional facts, and an author’s note. For readers who are able to remove the jacket, there is a Morse code chart on its reverse.
An excellent, entertaining choice to highlight social-emotional skills, history, and STEM. (Picture book/biography. 5-8)Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-62779-130-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era.
The New Orleans school child who famously broke the color line in 1960 while surrounded by federal marshals describes the early days of her experience from a 6-year-old’s perspective.
Bridges told her tale to younger children in 2009’s Ruby Bridges Goes to School, but here the sensibility is more personal, and the sometimes-shocking historical photos have been replaced by uplifting painted scenes. “I didn’t find out what being ‘the first’ really meant until the day I arrived at this new school,” she writes. Unfrightened by the crowd of “screaming white people” that greets her at the school’s door (she thinks it’s like Mardi Gras) but surprised to find herself the only child in her classroom, and even the entire building, she gradually realizes the significance of her act as (in Smith’s illustration) she compares a small personal photo to the all-White class photos posted on a bulletin board and sees the difference. As she reflects on her new understanding, symbolic scenes first depict other dark-skinned children marching into classes in her wake to friendly greetings from lighter-skinned classmates (“School is just school,” she sensibly concludes, “and kids are just kids”) and finally an image of the bright-eyed icon posed next to a soaring bridge of reconciliation. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era. (author and illustrator notes, glossary) (Autobiographical picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-75388-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
A straightforward and informative primer on Pride and the community it engenders.
Why do rainbow flags often appear each June? Stonewall Award–winning author Lukoff offers an explanation.
Every year, queer folks and their allies come together to observe Pride—“a reminder for everyone to be proud of who they are.” After the Stonewall rebellion in June 1969 in New York City—a night when gay men and women and trans people “decided to fight back” after enduring frequent arrests by police—and the yearly parades that followed in its wake, San Francisco designer Gilbert Baker developed the rainbow Pride flag as a “symbol of hope for LGBTQIA+ people.” Lukoff explores the meanings behind the different colors of the most common Pride flag, from yellow (“sunlight”), which represents coming out of the closet and “being out in the light,” to orange (“healing”), which conveys the importance of seeking support. Though this yearly celebration has been co-opted by rampant commercialism, Lukoff returns to its roots, focusing on the community-building aspects of Pride. Other flags are featured such as the trans, genderqueer, asexual, and bisexual flags, yet they aren’t labeled or delved into further—a missed opportunity to emphasize the ever-growing queer community (the Progress Pride flag isn’t included at all). The upbeat digital illustrations depict people of different ages, races, genders, and sexualities. A note for parents offers basic child-friendly definitions of each of the terms in the initialism LGBTQIA.
A straightforward and informative primer on Pride and the community it engenders. (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593807859
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Golden Books/Random
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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