A good volume to include in a larger conversation about friendship, allyship, and social justice.
Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe were mutual supporters according to this historical picture book.
Ella and Marilyn were different on the outside, but both were “full of hopes and dreams” while their circumstances were humble. After they got their big breaks, Ella in jazz singing and Marilyn in acting, each struggled to reach her full potential. In the United States, Ella faced barriers due to racism and places that only hired “glamorous” stars. Marilyn got plenty of roles, but as a woman in an industry run by men, she lacked control over her career. When she got a script with a big singing role, she listened to her favorite singer, Ella, to practice for it. The movie was a hit, and Marilyn was finally able to get her voice heard as a professional. She went to thank Ella in person at one of Ella’s shows, and the two talked into the night. When Marilyn learned of the barriers Ella faced, she used her star status to negotiate a performance for Ella at a popular nightclub. While Marilyn is shown attaining fame first, this warm story emphasizes Ella’s role in her success, thus avoiding the trap of the white-savior narrative. Many white artists have benefited from imitating black ones; this is the rare narrative to acknowledge that. Harris’ illustrations are stiff but engaging; saturated with color, they capture the iconic looks of the two stars.
A good volume to include in a larger conversation about friendship, allyship, and social justice. (author’s note, sources) (Picture book/biography. 5-10)Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4998-0915-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2020
A sweet and endearing feathered migration.
A relationship between a Latina grandmother and her mixed-race granddaughter serves as the frame to depict the ruby-throated hummingbird migration pattern.
In Granny’s lap, a girl is encouraged to “keep still” as the intergenerational pair awaits the ruby-throated hummingbirds with bowls of water in their hands. But like the granddaughter, the tz’unun—“the word for hummingbird in several [Latin American] languages”—must soon fly north. Over the next several double-page spreads, readers follow the ruby-throated hummingbird’s migration pattern from Central America and Mexico through the United States all the way to Canada. Davies metaphorically reunites the granddaughter and grandmother when “a visitor from Granny’s garden” crosses paths with the girl in New York City. Ray provides delicately hashed lines in the illustrations that bring the hummingbirds’ erratic flight pattern to life as they travel north. The watercolor palette is injected with vibrancy by the addition of gold ink, mirroring the hummingbirds’ flashing feathers in the slants of light. The story is supplemented by notes on different pages with facts about the birds such as their nest size, diet, and flight schedule. In addition, a note about ruby-throated hummingbirds supplies readers with detailed information on how ornithologists study and keep track of these birds.
A sweet and endearing feathered migration. (bibliography, index) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0538-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40.
From two Nobel Peace Prize winners, an invitation to look past sadness and loneliness to the joy that surrounds us.
Bobbing in the wake of 2016’s heavyweight Book of Joy (2016), this brief but buoyant address to young readers offers an earnest insight: “If you just focus on the thing that is making / you sad, then the sadness is all you see. / But if you look around, you will / see that joy is everywhere.” López expands the simply delivered proposal in fresh and lyrical ways—beginning with paired scenes of the authors as solitary children growing up in very different circumstances on (as they put it) “opposite sides of the world,” then meeting as young friends bonded by streams of rainbow bunting and going on to share their exuberantly hued joy with a group of dancers diverse in terms of age, race, culture, and locale while urging readers to do the same. Though on the whole this comes off as a bit bland (the banter and hilarity that characterized the authors’ recorded interchanges are absent here) and their advice just to look away from the sad things may seem facile in view of what too many children are inescapably faced with, still, it’s hard to imagine anyone in the world more qualified to deliver such a message than these two. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-48423-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
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