Beautifully illustrated, riveting, enraging, and empowering: a must-read.
“It’s not just the image that matters, but how it takes up space. It’s not just the event that matters, but how we shape the stories around it”: This illustrated journey through lesser-known and frequently erased parts of United States history vividly demonstrates these points.
Each of 21 chapters in this debut by visual storyteller Aberg-Riger provides information typically missing from standard retellings of the nation’s past. The opening chapter discusses the post–Civil War rise of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, White women who promoted their version of history through distorted content in textbooks used by millions of children through the 1970s. A chapter on the annexation of Hawai‘i connects present-day poverty and Native Hawaiian activism to the impacts of missionaries, the military, White plantation owners, and culturally exploitative tourism. Other chapters cover involuntary sterilization, urban renewal, toxic-waste dumping, HIV/AIDS, extractive mining on Native lands, and more. This stellar offering combines startling facts, gripping prose, and appealing, vibrant collage illustrations that use photographs, maps, and other ephemera. The typeface, designed by the author, looks handwritten, bringing a feeling of immediacy. The contributions of women, people of color, individuals with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ people are featured prominently. Thought-provoking connections are made to today’s burning issues, e.g., gun control, lack of affordable housing, and mass incarceration. The short chapters in this accessible work will pique readers’ interest in diving deeper to learn more about these challenging topics.
Beautifully illustrated, riveting, enraging, and empowering: a must-read. (image sources, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 13-adult)Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9780063057531
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
Small but mighty necessary reading.
A miniature manifesto for radical queer acceptance that weaves together the personal and political.
Eli, a cis gay white Jewish man, uses his own identities and experiences to frame and acknowledge his perspective. In the prologue, Eli compares the global Jewish community to the global queer community, noting, “We don’t always get it right, but the importance of showing up for other Jews has been carved into the DNA of what it means to be Jewish. It is my dream that queer people develop the same ideology—what I like to call a Global Queer Conscience.” He details his own isolating experiences as a queer adolescent in an Orthodox Jewish community and reflects on how he and so many others would have benefitted from a robust and supportive queer community. The rest of the book outlines 10 principles based on the belief that an expectation of mutual care and concern across various other dimensions of identity can be integrated into queer community values. Eli’s prose is clear, straightforward, and powerful. While he makes some choices that may be divisive—for example, using the initialism LGBTQIAA+ which includes “ally”—he always makes clear those are his personal choices and that the language is ever evolving.
Small but mighty necessary reading. (resources) (Nonfiction. 14-18)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09368-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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