The concept’s basically sound, and despite flaws, the book could be useful when combined with other resources.
A roundup of traditional breakfast foods from around the world.
Brimming with foods—there’s Australia’s Vegemite on toast, Jamaica’s cornmeal porridge, and hagleslag (chocolate sprinkles) in the Netherlands—this colorful tome is a fun tribute to global foods and cultures. Each of the 12 countries has a dedicated two-page spread. One page is written in rhyme while the second page offers descriptions and cultural details in prose. Unfortunately, McGinty’s stunted rhymes break up the flow and detract from the book’s true potential. “Breakfast in Australia / is a black and salty paste. / Thinly spread on toasted bread… / It’s quite a shocking taste!” Most disappointing? McGinty loses a huge opportunity to encapsulate “breakfast around the world” by ignoring the plurality of America’s multicultural population. Americans don’t all eat bagels, cereal, or eggs and bacon for breakfast! Thank goodness for Suzuki’s playful illustrations. Attentive readers will spot lovely details beyond just food; the cultures themselves are on show, particularly how children live and play in other countries. Larger-than-life pictures of congee and shakshuka are flanked by fruit, flora and fauna, famous landmarks and symbols, as well as diverse children in everyday settings. The book also highlights different eating habits. For example, families in India gather on the floor to eat off banana leaves with fingers instead of silverware.
The concept’s basically sound, and despite flaws, the book could be useful when combined with other resources. (map) (Informational picture book. 4-10)Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-499-80712-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little Bee Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
A reasonably solid grounding in constitutional rights, their flexibility, lacunae, and hard-won corrections, despite a few...
Shamir offers an investigation of the foundations of freedoms in the United States via its founding documents, as well as movements and individuals who had great impacts on shaping and reshaping those institutions.
The opening pages of this picture book get off to a wobbly start with comments such as “You know that feeling you get…when you see a wide open field that you can run through without worrying about traffic or cars? That’s freedom.” But as the book progresses, Shamir slowly steadies the craft toward that wide-open field of freedom. She notes the many obvious-to-us-now exclusivities that the founding political documents embodied—that the entitled, white, male authors did not extend freedom to enslaved African-Americans, Native Americans, and women—and encourages readers to learn to exercise vigilance and foresight. The gradual inclusion of these left-behind people paints a modestly rosy picture of their circumstances today, and the text seems to give up on explaining how Native Americans continue to be left behind. Still, a vital part of what makes freedom daunting is its constant motion, and that is ably expressed. Numerous boxed tidbits give substance to the bigger political picture. Who were the abolitionists and the suffragists, what were the Montgomery bus boycott and the “Uprising of 20,000”? Faulkner’s artwork conveys settings and emotions quite well, and his drawing of Ruby Bridges is about as darling as it gets. A helpful timeline and bibliography appear as endnotes.
A reasonably solid grounding in constitutional rights, their flexibility, lacunae, and hard-won corrections, despite a few misfires. (Informational picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-54728-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
A good-enough introduction to a contested festivity but one that’s not in step with the community it’s for.
An overview of the modern African-American holiday.
This book arrives at a time when black people in the United States have had intraracial—some serious, some snarky—conversations about Kwanzaa’s relevance nowadays, from its patchwork inspiration that flattens the cultural diversity of the African continent to a single festive story to, relatedly, the earnest blacker-than-thou pretentiousness surrounding it. Both the author and consultant Keith A. Mayes take great pains—and in painfully simplistic language—to provide a context that attempts to refute the internal arguments as much as it informs its intended audience. In fact, Mayes says in the endnotes that young people are Kwanzaa’s “largest audience and most important constituents” and further extends an invitation to all races and ages to join the winter celebration. However, his “young people represent the future” counterpoint—and the book itself—really responds to an echo of an argument, as black communities have moved the conversation out to listen to African communities who critique the holiday’s loose “African-ness” and deep American-ness and moved on to commemorate holidays that have a more historical base in black people’s experiences in the United States, such as Juneteenth. In this context, the explications of Kwanzaa’s principles and symbols and the smattering of accompanying activities feel out of touch.
A good-enough introduction to a contested festivity but one that’s not in step with the community it’s for. (resources, bibliography, glossary, afterword) (Nonfiction. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4263-2849-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: National Geographic Kids
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2017
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