This engaging and affectionate re-creation of Lewis’ life highlights resilience, creativity, and inspiration.
The story of C.S. Lewis and how Narnia came to be.
From a young age, books and imagination were enormously important to young Clive Staples Lewis—or Jack, as he preferred to be called—and here, the warm, folkloric text and colorful, detailed ink-and-acrylic pictures invite readers and listeners to consider how, through dark moments, he created his own stories as a bright refuge. Lewis had a close relationship with his brother, developed a love of religion, and found happiness with an American wife, but he also withstood the early death of his mother, isolation and bullying in boarding school, and the horrors of World War I in part through his creativity and storytelling. As befitting the creator of the beloved Narnia books, this illustrated biography maintains the sense of a story unfolding, leading up to the moments when the iconic stories came to be while simultaneously explaining Lewis’ background, experiences, and some of his likely inspirations. Though Lewis dealt with much difficulty, the emphasis is on how he coped and, throughout his life, read, imagined, dreamed, pondered, and created. The endnotes provide a plethora of facts and additional information, nicely organized for potential research; these will likely elicit additional questions about his life and may lead readers to explore further.
This engaging and affectionate re-creation of Lewis’ life highlights resilience, creativity, and inspiration. (Picture book/biography. 6-10)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-279856-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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Bridges Goes to School, but here the sensibility is more personal, and the sometimes-shocking historical photos have been replaced by uplifting painted scenes.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
PERSPECTIVES
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
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