A straightforward biography that may inspire an interest in history and aviation.
Female pilot Nancy Harkness Love broke barriers.
Nancy developed a passion for aviation at age 16 when she took a ride with a barnstormer pilot. While attending college, she earned her pilot’s license, but due to the Great Depression, her family couldn’t afford her tuition, and she ended up moving to Boston. There, a man named Bob Love hired her to demonstrate to customers how airplanes flew. She later married Bob and continued to work as a pilot. When World War II broke out, Love advocated for women to ferry planes for the military and then went on to lead the Women’s Auxiliary Flying Squadron, which merged with another program, becoming the Women Airforce Service Pilots. Though slightly prolonged, the focus on Love’s early life fleshes out both her daring personality and the fascinating path that led her to leading the women’s ferrying division of WASP. The downplaying of the sexism Love faced, both when becoming a professional pilot and in military service, combines with bland character designs to belie the unique role in history Love and the other WASP pilots played, but an author’s note gives greater detail regarding who the other original WASPs were and what they accomplished. Love and most other characters present white. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A straightforward biography that may inspire an interest in history and aviation. (photographs, sources) (Picture-book biography. 5-9)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2023
ISBN: 9781534484191
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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Bridges Goes to School, but here the sensibility is more personal, and the sometimes-shocking historical photos have been replaced by uplifting painted scenes.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
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
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