Deelytful and iloominaating for noo and seesuned reeders alyk.
Two Founding Fathers team up for their own miniature revolution—to simplify and standardize American English.
Printer Ben Franklin couldn’t stand inconsistent spelling. He wanted to invent some new and remove some old letters to create a phonetic alphabet. Noah Webster also couldn’t stand our inconsistent alphabet. He wanted to create a guide to grammar and pronunciation. Both wanted to change the way that Americans used English: “Using twenty-six letters to write forty-four sounds caused nothing but trouble.” The two visionaries teamed up to tackle the problem of the “inconvenient alphabet,” crafting a new alphabet—one in which letters matched sounds and sounds matched letters. When this idea failed to gain widespread support, Webster came up with new plans, this time to revolutionize spelling. His plans for seemingly simpler spellings were also rejected by the populace, leading Webster to create his best-known work: his dictionary. Both Anderson’s text and Baddeley’s illustrations are energetic and compelling. The latter playfully elucidate examples of the linguistic nuances discussed, showing (for instance) Webster and Franklin manually taking silent letters out of words such as “walk” and “knock.” The majority of illustrated figures are white, although a variety of skin tones are presented in each group illustration.
Deelytful and iloominaating for noo and seesuned reeders alyk. (author’s and illustrator’s notes, quotation sources, bibliography) (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5344-0555-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
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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