An accessible and engaging portrait of a remarkable historical figure.
Eliza Hamilton’s life is summarized, along with some fictionalized episodes intended to illuminate her character and accomplishments.
Andros uses an extended metaphor of seeds and trees to frame Eliza’s long and eventful life. This view of human resilience as stemming from strong roots, along with sophisticated vocabulary and the breadth of Eliza’s experiences, may require some explication for young listeners. Repetition of words and ideas and a lyrical flow to the text, however, ensure that listening will be a pleasure even if understanding takes some extra effort. Blackham’s matte, naïve-style illustrations vary in size and placement, including double-page spreads, single-page pictures, and spot illustrations. The subdued palette appears appropriate to the era; details of costume and setting also serve to anchor the story in time. Eliza is first shown as an energetic, smiling, dark-haired, pale-skinned girl with loving parents. Her empathy for those less fortunate is shown in a drably colored (imagined) interaction with an unnamed white orphan boy. Growth from child to young woman follows quickly, summarized on a two-page spread that shows her eight times against the same simple background, a checkerboard floor. Her marriage to Alexander Hamilton, the birth and raising of their children, the loss of her husband, and her subsequent child welfare work are briefly outlined and illustrated in the remaining pages; the last activity introduces the only characters of color depicted.
An accessible and engaging portrait of a remarkable historical figure. (author’s note, artist’s note, bibliography) (Biography. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-29742-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
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
Blandly laudatory.
The iconic animator introduces young readers to each “happy place” in his life.
The tally begins with his childhood home in Marceline, Missouri, and climaxes with Disneyland (carefully designed to be “the happiest place on Earth”), but the account really centers on finding his true happy place, not on a map but in drawing. In sketching out his early flubs and later rocket to the top, the fictive narrator gives Ub Iwerks and other Disney studio workers a nod (leaving his labor disputes with them unmentioned) and squeezes in quick references to his animated films, from Steamboat Willie to Winnie the Pooh (sans Fantasia and Song of the South). Eliopoulos incorporates stills from the films into his cartoon illustrations and, characteristically for this series, depicts Disney as a caricature, trademark mustache in place on outsized head even in childhood years and child sized even as an adult. Human figures default to white, with occasional people of color in crowd scenes and (ahistorically) in the animation studio. One unidentified animator builds up the role-modeling with an observation that Walt and Mickey were really the same (“Both fearless; both resourceful”). An assertion toward the end—“So when do you stop being a child? When you stop dreaming”—muddles the overall follow-your-bliss message. A timeline to the EPCOT Center’s 1982 opening offers photos of the man with select associates, rodent and otherwise. An additional series entry, I Am Marie Curie, publishes simultaneously, featuring a gowned, toddler-sized version of the groundbreaking physicist accepting her two Nobel prizes.
Blandly laudatory. (bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2875-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
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