An enticing invitation to be like the courageous and innovative primatologist profiled here.
A warm testimonial to the life and achievements of Jane Goodall, one of the world’s most renowned scientists.
Not really updating Patrick McConnell’s Caldecott Honoree Me…Jane (2011) but offering a fresh and more richly anecdotal recap, Robbins assumes his subject’s voice to trace her progress from early immersion in natural history around her British home to adult observations of chimpanzees in Tanzania and eventual emergence as a world-traveling advocate for animal and environmental conservation. Tallying the names she gave numerous pets and chimps as she goes (though the local assistants who first helped her set up camp in Tanzania go unidentified), the narrator explains how she was able to get close enough to her study subjects to see them using tools, partying, and exhibiting other behaviors long thought exclusively human—and used some of what she learned to raise her own child. Along with a bulleted list of suggestions for readers who want to “Be Like Jane,” the backmatter includes a summary of Goodall’s discoveries and thumbnail profiles of six of her closest chimpanzee friends. In cleanly drawn scenes, Aly places her slender, confident-looking figure in settings both indoors and out, posing serenely with human groups diverse of age and race or sitting on the ground and interacting animatedly with smiling simians. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
An enticing invitation to be like the courageous and innovative primatologist profiled here. (author’s note, timeline, books by and about Goodall) (Picture-book biography. 5-8)Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781338680126
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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