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A IS FOR ABIGAIL

Name: A IS FOR ABIGAIL
Author: Lynne Cheney
ISBN: 0-689-85819-1

AN ALMANAC OF AMAZING AMERICAN WOMEN

by Lynne Cheney & illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 16, 2003

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The creators of the sumptuous, if superficial, America: A Patriotic Primer (2002) follow up with a better, look-alike tribute to the achievements of this country’s women, Abigail Adams to Babe Didrikson Zaharias. Though Anne Hutchinson takes a solo turn for “H,” most entries are multiples, from the four female medical workers surrounding Elizabeth Blackwell to a double-gatefold stage at “P,” filled with renowned Performers. Occasional captions or pithy quotes, supported by sketchy notes at the back, provide snippets of context for at least some of the women here—and Glasser gives them recognizable faces in her big, playful, intricately detailed compositions. But few were born after 1950, and some are never even named: several feminists are seen marching in “S is for the Sixties and Seventies and the Second Wave” (i.e., of feminism), for instance, but not identified. Still, as a consciousness-raiser, this offers a larger cast than Cheryl Harness’s Remember the Ladies: 100 Great American Women (2001). (Picture book/biography. 8-10)

Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2003

ISBN: 0-689-85819-1

Page Count: 48

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2003

Categories:

CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | CHILDREN'S HISTORY

- BOOK REVIEW
AMERICA
by Lynne Cheney & illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser

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THE STORY OF SALT

by Mark Kurlansky & illustrated by S.D. Schindler ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2006

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The author of Cod’s Tale (2001) again demonstrates a dab hand at recasting his adult work for a younger audience. Here the topic is salt, “the only rock eaten by human beings,” and, as he engrossingly demonstrates, “the object of wars and revolutions” throughout recorded history and before. Between his opening disquisition on its chemical composition and a closing timeline, he explores salt’s sources and methods of extraction, its worldwide economic influences from prehistoric domestication of animals to Gandhi’s Salt March, its many uses as a preservative and industrial product, its culinary and even, as the source for words like “salary” and “salad,” its linguistic history. Along with lucid maps and diagrams, Schindler supplies detailed, sometimes fanciful scenes to go along, finishing with a view of young folk chowing down on orders of French fries as ghostly figures from history look on. Some of Kurlansky’s claims are exaggerated (the Erie and other canals were built to transport more than just salt, for instance), and there are no leads to further resources, but this salutary (in more ways than one) micro-history will have young readers lifting their shakers in tribute. (Picture book/nonfiction. 8-10)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-399-23998-7

Page Count: 48

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2006

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HISTORY | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
BIG LIES
by Mark Kurlansky ; illustrated by Eric Zelz

- BOOK REVIEW
BUGS IN DANGER
by Mark Kurlansky ; illustrated by Jia Liu

- BOOK REVIEW
FROZEN IN TIME
by Mark Kurlansky

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IF A BUS COULD TALK

THE STORY OF ROSA PARKS

by Faith Ringgold ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1999

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Ringgold’s biography of Rosa Parks packs substantial material into a few pages, but with a light touch, and with the ring of authenticity that gives her act of weary resistance all the respect it deserves. Narrating the book is the bus that Parks took that morning 45 years ago; it recounts the signal events in Parks’s life to a young girl who boarded it to go to school. A decent amount of the material will probably be new to children, for Parks is so intimately associated with the Montgomery Bus Boycott that her work with the NAACP before the bus incident is often overlooked, as is her later role as a community activist in Detroit with Congressman John Conyers. Ringgold, through the bus, also informs readers of Parks’s youth in rural Alabama, where Klansmen and nightriders struck fear into the lives of African-Americans. These experiences make her refusal to release her seat all the more courageous, for the consequences of resistance were not gentle. All the events are depicted in emotive naive artwork that underscores their truth; Ringgold delivers Parks’s story without hyperbole, but rather as a life lived with pride, conviction, and consequence. (Picture book/biography. 5-9)