An engaging whistle-stop tour through an important chapter in women’s history that’s rarely given room to shine.
Lady Bird Johnson redefined the role of first lady, campaigning for her husband through the politically hostile American South.
After signing the Civil Rights Act into law in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson faced an uphill battle for reelection, especially in the segregated South. When Secret Service agents deemed it too dangerous for the president to campaign in Southern states, the first lady—a Southerner herself—stepped up and began her historic whistle-stop tour (so named because “trains whistle over and over as they pass by or make stops”), visiting eight states in four days. Though it was unheard of for political wives to campaign alone, Lady Bird courageously faced protestors, hecklers, and even a bomb threat. While it can’t be proven, the afterword suggests that Lady Bird’s grit and Southern charm may have swayed the votes of several Southern states in LBJ’s favor. Soft, painterly illustrations evoke the time period through color and clothing. Though this appealing book’s focus is the action-packed tour itself, Lady Bird reflects on the injustice of segregation during her childhood in Texas, wondering “why her best friends could play with her in her front yard but not in the schoolyard.” The authors gloss over Lady Bird’s own privileged upbringing, but on the whole, they offer an illuminating look at a historical moment that many may be unaware of.
An engaging whistle-stop tour through an important chapter in women’s history that’s rarely given room to shine. (additional facts, timeline, authors’ note, photos, bibliography, source notes, photo credits) (Informational picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: July 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781534113015
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024
A reasonably solid grounding in constitutional rights, their flexibility, lacunae, and hard-won corrections, despite a few...
Shamir offers an investigation of the foundations of freedoms in the United States via its founding documents, as well as movements and individuals who had great impacts on shaping and reshaping those institutions.
The opening pages of this picture book get off to a wobbly start with comments such as “You know that feeling you get…when you see a wide open field that you can run through without worrying about traffic or cars? That’s freedom.” But as the book progresses, Shamir slowly steadies the craft toward that wide-open field of freedom. She notes the many obvious-to-us-now exclusivities that the founding political documents embodied—that the entitled, white, male authors did not extend freedom to enslaved African-Americans, Native Americans, and women—and encourages readers to learn to exercise vigilance and foresight. The gradual inclusion of these left-behind people paints a modestly rosy picture of their circumstances today, and the text seems to give up on explaining how Native Americans continue to be left behind. Still, a vital part of what makes freedom daunting is its constant motion, and that is ably expressed. Numerous boxed tidbits give substance to the bigger political picture. Who were the abolitionists and the suffragists, what were the Montgomery bus boycott and the “Uprising of 20,000”? Faulkner’s artwork conveys settings and emotions quite well, and his drawing of Ruby Bridges is about as darling as it gets. A helpful timeline and bibliography appear as endnotes.
A reasonably solid grounding in constitutional rights, their flexibility, lacunae, and hard-won corrections, despite a few misfires. (Informational picture book. 6-10)Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-54728-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
A glorious monument to the national monuments.
The national monuments get their due.
Walker briefly recounts the history of the monuments (thank you, Teddy Roosevelt). Instead of the usual glossy photos, the text is paired with copious subtle watercolors, harmoniously arrayed with text on generous double-page spreads. Sparkling descriptions invite reader participation: “Imagine it’s 1892, and you’re arriving” in New York Harbor. “What will you see in the [pipestone] rocks?” Many monuments are in sites of superb natural beauty, but unlike the national parks, they must have historical, prehistorical, cultural, and/or scientific interest. Readers will find information on dinosaur fossils, geology, flora and fauna, and places important to Indigenous people, significant in history (Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument, Stonewall National Monument, the Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument), and/or connected to American leaders like Cesar Chavez. Fascinating facts are interspersed (the Washington Monument is held together through friction and gravity rather than mortar; the Pullman workers’ 1894 strike helped establish Labor Day). Regional maps throughout indicate the locations of the various monuments, divided by area: East, Central, Southwest, Mountain West, West, Alaska, and Tropics. A calm, subdued palette and geometric-based forms that use washes rather than line allow for a maximum of information without fussiness and, with help from typography, evoke classic WPA posters.
A glorious monument to the national monuments. (index) (Nonfiction. 6-10)Pub Date: June 13, 2023
ISBN: 9780711265493
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2023
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