Further cements the 44th U.S. president’s status as a strong role model and an admirable human being.
A respectful profile of Barack Obama, from childhood to the White House.
Readers will have to learn elsewhere that Obama is still alive and a public figure, since the appended timeline ends in 2017, before much of the intended audience was born. Rappaport’s narrative ends even earlier than that, with approving references to his overseeing the 2011 assassination of Osama Bin Laden and the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive order. Still, along with laying out major events in his life (so far) in a narrative punctuated by direct quotes, she does illuminate some nuances in his character. She notes that he lived comfortably in Indonesia rather than in “hovels” like many of his neighbors and that he didn’t have the smoothest relationship with his distant, autocratic birth father. More significantly, the author links early lessons in Civil Rights history from Obama’s mother (“Five days a week, at four in the morning”) and guidance in treating others with compassion from his loving adoptive father. She also links his resolution of his early confusion about his own racial identity to his later firm, principled commitment to equality across lines of race and social class in the face of determined opposition from Republican opponents and “vicious assaults” from the media. Flashing that wide smile from an early age, he cuts a dignified figure in Engel’s illustrations, both in cozy family settings and posing before racially diverse crowds.
Further cements the 44th U.S. president’s status as a strong role model and an admirable human being. (author’s and illustrator’s notes, selected bibliography, source notes) (Picture-book biography. 6-9)Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780316397834
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2024
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 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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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