A heartfelt if inadequate tool to provoke conversations about prejudice and bullying.
Roberts addresses prejudice, bullying, and allied behavior with young children.
Like the rest of the World Around Us series, this title aims to help children confront difficult truths about our world and to empower them to create change. The text begins with an unspecified bullying incident, which it then reframes as “harassment,” saying “when someone is harassed because they are different, it’s often due to prejudice held by the person who is being mean.” While these terms are defined, biases “based on that person’s different race, religion, sex, age or ability” are presented as existing in an equitable vacuum, without attention to the impacts of systemic imbalances of power and marginalization. The narrative does not follow anti-racism best practices by acknowledging that biases are the stories we all tell ourselves about other people before we know them and also advocating that everyone work against biases by acknowledging privilege and resisting internalized oppression. While the text does address openness to learning about others, its failure to situate harassment/bullying and allied behavior within the realities of social and political inequities undermines its efficacy. Throughout, illustrations and photos of diverse people depict scenarios of bullying and allied behavior, and Q-and-A text models conversations between adults and children about prejudice.
A heartfelt if inadequate tool to provoke conversations about prejudice and bullying. (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Feb. 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4598-2091-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
A sweet and endearing feathered migration.
A relationship between a Latina grandmother and her mixed-race granddaughter serves as the frame to depict the ruby-throated hummingbird migration pattern.
In Granny’s lap, a girl is encouraged to “keep still” as the intergenerational pair awaits the ruby-throated hummingbirds with bowls of water in their hands. But like the granddaughter, the tz’unun—“the word for hummingbird in several [Latin American] languages”—must soon fly north. Over the next several double-page spreads, readers follow the ruby-throated hummingbird’s migration pattern from Central America and Mexico through the United States all the way to Canada. Davies metaphorically reunites the granddaughter and grandmother when “a visitor from Granny’s garden” crosses paths with the girl in New York City. Ray provides delicately hashed lines in the illustrations that bring the hummingbirds’ erratic flight pattern to life as they travel north. The watercolor palette is injected with vibrancy by the addition of gold ink, mirroring the hummingbirds’ flashing feathers in the slants of light. The story is supplemented by notes on different pages with facts about the birds such as their nest size, diet, and flight schedule. In addition, a note about ruby-throated hummingbirds supplies readers with detailed information on how ornithologists study and keep track of these birds.
A sweet and endearing feathered migration. (bibliography, index) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5362-0538-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
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
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