From the inspired take on the 1939 War of the Worlds broadcast (Aliens Are Coming!, 2006), McCarthy turns her attention to another icon of 20th-century pop culture, Charles Atlas. Bug-eyed cartoony acrylics depict the arrival on American shores of young Angelo Siciliano and the now-legendary sand-kicking episode on Coney Island’s beach: “SPLAT!” Inspired by a statue of Hercules in a museum and a powerful lion at the zoo, he determined to remake himself. Of course, he did, becoming the inspiration for thousands of comics-reading 98-pound weaklings that followed. Such a story could easily be deadly in its virtue, but both the humor of the illustrations and the accretion of cool Atlas facts—he served as the model for over 75 statues around the country; he still reigns as “The World’s Most Perfectly Developed Man”—keep things light without undercutting the author’s genuine admiration for the man. Comic-strip panels appropriately share the space with traditional spreads and mock black-and-white photographs, delivering a sunny account of Atlas’s life and career. An extensive author’s note expands on both man and influence; four exercises are also provided. (bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 5-8)
Pub Date: June 12, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-375-82940-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2007
One of the watershed moments in African-American history—the defeat of James Braddock at the hands of Joe Louis—is here given an earnest picture-book treatment. Despite his lack of athletic ability, Sammy wants desperately to be a great boxer, like his hero, getting boxing lessons from his friend Ernie in exchange for help with schoolwork. However hard he tries, though, Sammy just can’t box, and his father comforts him, reminding him that he doesn’t need to box: Joe Louis has shown him that he “can be the champion at anything [he] want[s].” The high point of this offering is the big fight itself, everyone crowded around the radio in Mister Jake’s general store, the imagined fight scenes played out in soft-edged sepia frames. The main story, however, is so bent on providing Sammy and the reader with object lessons that all subtlety is lost, as Mister Jake, Sammy’s father, and even Ernie hammer home the message. Both text and oil-on-canvas-paper illustrations go for the obvious angle, making the effort as a whole worthy, but just a little too heavy-handed. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-58430-161-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2004
This second early biography of Cousteau in a year echoes Jennifer Berne’s Manfish: A Story of Jacques Cousteau (2008), illustrated by Eric Puybaret, in offering visuals that are more fanciful than informational, but also complements it with a focus less on the early life of the explorer and eco-activist than on his later inventions and achievements. In full-bleed scenes that are often segmented and kaleidoscopic, Yaccarino sets his hook-nosed subject amid shoals of Impressionistic fish and other marine images, rendered in multiple layers of thinly applied, imaginatively colored paint. His customarily sharp, geometric lines take on the wavy translucence of undersea shapes with a little bit of help from the airbrush. Along with tracing Cousteau’s undersea career from his first, life-changing, pair of goggles and the later aqualung to his minisub Sea Flea, the author pays tribute to his revolutionary film and TV work, and his later efforts to call attention to the effects of pollution. Cousteau’s enduring fascination with the sea comes through clearly, and can’t help sparking similar feelings in readers. (chronology, source list) (Picture book/biography. 6-8)
Pub Date: March 24, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-375-85573-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2009
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