A high-interest title, with some organizational weaknesses.
Ghosts, witches, and demons!
Festivals that incorporate supernatural figures have been celebrated for centuries. Many honor ancestors or are celebrated to keep the dead from haunting the living. Others commemorate battles between good and evil. Ralphs and Kotyk describe 21 celebrations in double-page spreads filled with intensely colored, at times overly busy, detailed digital illustrations. Compared with similar titles, this one highlights festivals from a variety of regions, among them Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Levant. Starting with Halloween, the holidays include the Ouidah Vodun Festival in Benin, observed in West Africa as well as in the Caribbean and North America; Khamis Al-Amwat, celebrated by Arab Christians and Muslims to honor their dead; and Pchum Ben, a Cambodian Buddhist festival where families pay tribute to the past seven generations of ancestors by preparing food offerings. Unfortunately, the first spread states that Halloween “gets its name from the pagan festival All Hallows’ Eve,” while the section on Samhain refers to All Hallows’ Eve as a Christian celebration. It’s difficult to figure out the order in which to read the text blocks, because the reader’s eyes are constantly being pulled in different directions. There’s no chronological, geographic, or thematic order, and the book lacks a table of contents, index, or map, but despite these flaws, it explores a fair number of holidays that aren’t always spotlighted in children’s literature.
A high-interest title, with some organizational weaknesses. (Informational picture book. 7-11)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9781838667719
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Phaidon
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
Despite its purported scope, of limited use in today’s multicultural classrooms and libraries.
Informational tidbits about world holidays will leave readers hoping for more details.
Originally published in Great Britain, this small volume (the size of an elongated board book), perhaps intended as a gift item, tries for diversity but is still heavily weighted toward European traditions. Arranged seasonally, it starts off with a posh New Year celebration with tuxedos and paper crowns (and white faces) although the text mentions “Not every community celebrates its new year on the first day of January. China, Iran, and India are among the many countries that call other dates ‘New Year.’ ” Some headings are amusing. “Great Balls of Fire!” (more memorable to adults than children) leads off the explanation of Hogmanay (New Year) in Stonehaven, Scotland, where inhabitants in kilts celebrate with incendiary derring-do, pictured in a thumbnail vignette. The fierce Hungarian masks used to scare winters away are fun, and the celebration of Holi in India shows up in a double-page spread exploding with color. The Eyo festival of the Yoruba people of Lagos, Nigeria, is presented as a “winter celebration”; it is paired with a Shetland Islands festival, which is the one that’s pictured. Islamic festivals are omitted. The Jewish celebration of Hanukkah is included briefly, but the Easter and Christmas (evidently celebrated in “every country”) descriptions don’t mention Christianity. There is neither index nor sources.
Despite its purported scope, of limited use in today’s multicultural classrooms and libraries. (Nonfiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-944530-10-5
Page Count: 72
Publisher: 360 Degrees
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
Important background for prospective voters.
An explanation of what general voting is for and why it is important.
In unusually (for the audience) frank if bare-bones fashion, deRubertis briefly chronicles the “long and bumpy” pursuit of universal suffrage in this country, from the first U.S. elections in which just 1 percent of the populace was qualified to vote at all up to the 30 percent turnout that resulted in 2016’s presidential debacle. Rightly observing that having a legal right to vote and being allowed to exercise it are two very different things, she charts the slow extension of the franchise to ethnic minorities and women (as well as a federal court’s retrograde 2000 exclusion of residents of Puerto Rico and other territories); names the first African-Americans, Native Americans, woman, and Chinese-American to be elected to the U.S. Senate; and surveys the civil rights protests that led to 1975’s expanded Voting Rights Act. Though she focuses largely on federal elections, state and local ones receive some attention. The Electoral College, voter-record security issues, and political parties go unmentioned, but the author does highlight low turnouts as a significant issue before closing with an eloquent summation of voting’s importance in a democratic society. Age, race, and gender diversity were plainly important considerations in choosing the generous selection of period portraits and scenes and recent stock photos, including the striking cover image of a smiling black woman at a podium.
Important background for prospective voters. (Nonfiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63592-055-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kane Press
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
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