Apt for newly independent readers or as a classroom read-aloud or even a school play.
Sequoyah’s invention of a written Cherokee language is retold as a short stage play.
Prolific nonfiction writers and husband-and-wife team Coleman and Perrin re-create the story of Native American metalsmith Sequoyah, who, fascinated by the white man’s “talking leaves,” fashions a syllabary (not an alphabet) despite the misgivings of some of his people. One of a series of plays based on historical events, biographies and folklore, Sequoyah’s story is narrated by a Greek chorus of two historians who point out what is fact and what is supposition. Twelve other characters, including members of Sequoyah’s family and Cherokee conjurors, talk out the tale through 10 scenes and an epilogue with minimal stage direction. The retelling respects all of its characters and never descends into didacticism. The script should be easy to stage; however, Feeney’s attractive pastel illustrations complement the dialogue nicely, creating a hybrid picture book/script. An introduction and dramatis personae, glossary and further reading with websites extend the book’s usefulness. Follow the Drinking Gourd, from the same authorial team and illustrated by Courtney A. Martin, publishes simultaneously.
Apt for newly independent readers or as a classroom read-aloud or even a school play. (Drama. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-93965-636-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Red Chair Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Though occasionally heavy-handed, this debut offers a vivid glimpse of the 1960s South through the eyes of a spirited girl...
The closing of her favorite swimming pool opens 11-year-old Gloriana Hemphill’s eyes to the ugliness of racism in a small Mississippi town in 1964.
Glory can’t believe it… the Hanging Moss Community Pool is closing right before her July Fourth birthday. Not only that, she finds out the closure’s not for the claimed repairs needed, but so Negroes can’t swim there. Tensions have been building since “Freedom Workers” from the North started shaking up status quo, and Glory finds herself embroiled in it when her new, white friend from Ohio boldly drinks from the “Colored Only” fountain. The Hemphills’ African-American maid, Emma, a mother figure to Glory and her sister Jesslyn, tells her, “Don’t be worrying about what you can’t fix, Glory honey.” But Glory does, becoming an activist herself when she writes an indignant letter to the newspaper likening “hateful prejudice” to “dog doo” that makes her preacher papa proud. When she’s not saving the world, reading Nancy Drew or eating Dreamsicles, Glory shares the heartache of being the kid sister of a preoccupied teenager, friendship gone awry and the terrible cost of blabbing people’s secrets… mostly in a humorously sassy first-person voice.
Though occasionally heavy-handed, this debut offers a vivid glimpse of the 1960s South through the eyes of a spirited girl who takes a stand. (Historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-33180-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Japanese-American Aki and her family operate an asparagus farm in Westminster, Calif., until they are summarily uprooted and...
Two third-grade girls in California suffer the dehumanizing effects of racial segregation after the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor in 1942 in this moving story based on true events in the lives of Sylvia Mendez and Aki Munemitsu.
Japanese-American Aki and her family operate an asparagus farm in Westminster, Calif., until they are summarily uprooted and dispatched to an internment camp in Poston, Ariz., for the duration of World War II. As Aki endures the humiliation and deprivation of the hot, cramped barracks, she wonders if there’s “something wrong with being Japanese.” Sylvia’s Mexican-American family leases the Munemitsu farm. She expects to attend the local school but faces disappointment when authorities assign her to a separate, second-rate school for Mexican kids. In response, Sylvia’s father brings a legal action against the school district arguing against segregation in what eventually becomes a successful landmark case. Their lives intersect after Sylvia finds Aki’s doll, meets her in Poston and sends her letters. Working with material from interviews, Conkling alternates between Aki and Sylvia’s stories, telling them in the third person from the war’s start in 1942 through its end in 1945, with an epilogue updating Sylvia’s story to 1955.Pub Date: July 12, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-58246-337-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Tricycle
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
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