A glowing portrait of a groundbreaking jurist, or at least her public persona.
A celebration of the U.S. Supreme Court’s newest associate justice and first ever Black woman.
As befitting a tribute to a potential role model who has only recently become a national figure (though Ketanji Brown Jackson’s legal career began in 1996), the focus here is less on her specific achievements and decisions than early influences—particularly her father (“ ‘You can do anything. You can be anything,’ he told his bright-eyed brown daughter”)—and insights into her character as she went from high school class president to U.S. district judge on the way to taking a seat on our highest court. With reasonable fidelity, Holt’s stiffly composed group scenes compress major personal events in her life and depict her facing a jury and then later senatorial grilling with equal calmness, once with knitting in her lap and again with her family and supportive “sister-friends” sitting behind her, before closing with a final, formal close-up of a confident Jackson smiling widely. If the relatively massive dump of online news stories listed in the bibliography at the end won’t be much use to younger readers, it should serve older ones curious about the details of her background and legal record. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A glowing portrait of a groundbreaking jurist, or at least her public persona. (Picture-book biography. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781338885293
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A pivotal moment in a child’s life, at once stirring and authentically personal.
Before growing up to become a major figure in the civil rights movement, a boy finds a role model.
Buffing up a childhood tale told by her renowned father, Young Shelton describes how young Andrew saw scary men marching in his New Orleans neighborhood (“It sounded like they were yelling ‘Hi, Hitler!’ ”). In response to his questions, his father took him to see a newsreel of Jesse Owens (“a runner who looked like me”) triumphing in the 1936 Olympics. “Racism is a sickness,” his father tells him. “We’ve got to help folks like that.” How? “Well, you can start by just being the best person you can be,” his father replies. “It’s what you do that counts.” In James’ hazy chalk pastels, Andrew joins racially diverse playmates (including a White child with an Irish accent proudly displaying the nickel he got from his aunt as a bribe to stop playing with “those Colored boys”) in tag and other games, playing catch with his dad, sitting in the midst of a cheering crowd in the local theater’s segregated balcony, and finally visualizing himself pelting down a track alongside his new hero—“head up, back straight, eyes focused,” as a thematically repeated line has it, on the finish line. An afterword by Young Shelton explains that she retold this story, told to her many times growing up, drawing from conversations with Young and from her own research; family photos are also included. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A pivotal moment in a child’s life, at once stirring and authentically personal. (illustrator’s note) (Autobiographical picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-545-55465-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
Quick and slick, but ably makes its case.
The distinguished jurist stands tall as a role model.
Not literally tall, of course—not only was she actually tiny but, as with all the other bobbleheaded caricatures in the “Ordinary People Change the World” series, Ginsburg, sporting huge eyeglasses on an outsize head over black judicial robes even in childhood, remains a doll-like figure in all of Eliopoulos’ cartoon scenes. It’s in the frank acknowledgment of the sexism and antisemitism she resolutely overcame as she went from reading about “real female heroes” to becoming one—and also the clear statement of how she so brilliantly applied the principle of “tikkun olam” (“repairing the world”) in her career to the notion that women and men should have the same legal rights—that her stature comes clear. For all the brevity of his profile, Meltzer spares some attention for her private life, too (“This is Marty. He loved me, and he loved my brains. So I married him!”). Other judicial activists of the past and present, all identified and including the current crop of female Supreme Court justices, line up with a diversely hued and abled group of younger followers to pay tribute in final scenes. “Fight for the things you care about,” as a typically savvy final quote has it, “but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”
Quick and slick, but ably makes its case. (timeline, photos, source list, further reading) (Picture-book biography. 7-9)Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2024
ISBN: 9780593533338
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Rocky Pond Books/Penguin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2023
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