This high-speed origin story, appropriately enough, is larger than life and almost impossible to believe.
If anyone deserves the superhero treatment, it’s Stan Lee.
Lee takes on more than one identity in this picture-book biography. As a teen, he’s Errand Boy, with the ability to deliver lunch to every employee at Timely Comics at astounding speed. Later in the book, Eriksen compares him to the Human Torch, as he creates one classic Marvel Comics character after another. She goes for the obvious pun: “Stan was on fire!” Sometimes she rushes through the timeline almost haphazardly. The artist Jack Kirby quits Timely Comics and then, a few pages later, is working with Lee again, with little explanation. One picture shows Lee on the red carpet, apparently at a movie premiere in the 2000s, but the next page jumps back decades, to columns he wrote asking: “What makes a hero?” The sections about Kirby may be controversial. Fans of the artist have argued for years that Lee gave him (and other artists, including Steve Ditko) too little credit for coming up with the ideas behind Marvel characters. But this book mainly credits Lee for those ideas. Kirby and Ditko were superheroes, too. Nearly all of the sources in the bibliography are interviews with Lee or books and articles he wrote. Still, the frenetic pace is often genuinely thrilling, and the illustrations are enormously appealing, stretching and squashing anatomy as though Gatlin had taken Silly Putty to the funny pages. The comic-book creators are, as they were in life, generally White and Jewish, but the pictures show comics fans of many races, cultures, and body types.
This high-speed origin story, appropriately enough, is larger than life and almost impossible to believe. (historical note) (Picture book/biography. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64567-285-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Page Street
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
A supplemental rather than introductory book on the great artist.
Frida Kahlo’s strong affection for and identification with animals form the lens through which readers view her life and work in this picture-book biography.
Each two-page spread introduces one or more of her pets, comparing her characteristics to theirs and adding biographical details. Confusingly for young readers, the beginning pages reference pets she owned as an adult, yet the illustrations and events referred to come from earlier in her life. Bonito the parrot perches in a tree overlooking young Frida and her family in her childhood home and pops up again later, just before the first mention of Diego Rivera. Granizo, the fawn, another pet from her adult years, is pictured beside a young Frida and her father along with a description of “her life as a little girl.” The author’s note adds important details about Kahlo’s life and her significance as an artist, as well as recommending specific paintings that feature her beloved animals. Expressive acrylic paintings expertly evoke Kahlo’s style and color palette. While young animal lovers will identify with her attachment to her pets and may enjoy learning about the Aztec origins of her Xolo dogs and the meaning of turkeys in ancient Mexico, the book may be of most interest to those who already have an interest in Kahlo’s life.
A supplemental rather than introductory book on the great artist. (Picture book/biography. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7358-4269-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: NorthSouth
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era.
The New Orleans school child who famously broke the color line in 1960 while surrounded by federal marshals describes the early days of her experience from a 6-year-old’s perspective.
Bridges told her tale to younger children in 2009’s Ruby Bridges Goes to School, but here the sensibility is more personal, and the sometimes-shocking historical photos have been replaced by uplifting painted scenes. “I didn’t find out what being ‘the first’ really meant until the day I arrived at this new school,” she writes. Unfrightened by the crowd of “screaming white people” that greets her at the school’s door (she thinks it’s like Mardi Gras) but surprised to find herself the only child in her classroom, and even the entire building, she gradually realizes the significance of her act as (in Smith’s illustration) she compares a small personal photo to the all-White class photos posted on a bulletin board and sees the difference. As she reflects on her new understanding, symbolic scenes first depict other dark-skinned children marching into classes in her wake to friendly greetings from lighter-skinned classmates (“School is just school,” she sensibly concludes, “and kids are just kids”) and finally an image of the bright-eyed icon posed next to a soaring bridge of reconciliation. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era. (author and illustrator notes, glossary) (Autobiographical picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-75388-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
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