The intriguingly complicated story of Tituba and the Salem witch trials is presented for a young audience with some liberties taken with the facts that are actually known about her. Miller’s history as a poet comes through in his telling, especially during Tituba’s description of her homeland to the two girls in her care. She fondly recalls the beautiful birds that would greet her each morning on the way to the river, her gratitude to the water spirits when filling her jar and her ability to tell fortunes by tossing shells. After these revelations the girls have strange dreams and Tituba is accused of being a witch. Brought before a judge and persecuted because she is different, Tituba is told to “confess or die.” To avoid execution and to save herself, she tells the court what they want to hear. Sitting alone in jail, when all others have been sent home, she is distraught to the point of wanting to end it all. But her spirit is uplifted when moonlight washes over her, for she realizes that the moon shines on everyone equally. She’s released and sold to another family far away. When young slaves from her native island arrive, Tituba becomes their mentor, advising that “a master might own your body, but he can never own your spirit.” Unfortunately, most of this story is imagined. Very little is known about what happened to Tituba, as the author himself points out. And it is uncertain whether he even knows what she could have been thinking. While the intent is certainly a noble one, readers deserve to know when a story is fiction and when it is not. Jenkins’s art is interesting and often very powerful, although Tituba sometimes seems to be placed on top of the scene. It is unfortunate that it accompanies a flawed text. (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-15-201897-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2000
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
This second early biography of Cousteau in a year echoes Jennifer Berne’s Manfish: A Story of Jacques Cousteau (2008), illustrated by Eric Puybaret, in offering visuals that are more fanciful than informational, but also complements it with a focus less on the early life of the explorer and eco-activist than on his later inventions and achievements. In full-bleed scenes that are often segmented and kaleidoscopic, Yaccarino sets his hook-nosed subject amid shoals of Impressionistic fish and other marine images, rendered in multiple layers of thinly applied, imaginatively colored paint. His customarily sharp, geometric lines take on the wavy translucence of undersea shapes with a little bit of help from the airbrush. Along with tracing Cousteau’s undersea career from his first, life-changing, pair of goggles and the later aqualung to his minisub Sea Flea, the author pays tribute to his revolutionary film and TV work, and his later efforts to call attention to the effects of pollution. Cousteau’s enduring fascination with the sea comes through clearly, and can’t help sparking similar feelings in readers. (chronology, source list) (Picture book/biography. 6-8)
Pub Date: March 24, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-375-85573-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2009
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