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
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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