A moving historical protest primer that invites even the youngest readers to rise up and fight for what’s right.
From the Boston Tea Party to demonstrations against the Dakota Access Pipeline, the United States was founded on protest movements and continues to evolve because of them.
Vibrant, richly colored gouache illustrations depict bold scenes of American resistance throughout history. Katz presents an array of iconic protest movements in no particular order. Bass’ swirling images detail iconic moments, sometimes reminiscent of famous photographs, like that of Ruby Bridges descending the stairs of her newly integrated school or Marian Anderson’s 1939 concert at the Lincoln Memorial. An informative text box is laid atop the illustration of each movement, lending historical context. Rhyming couplets offer an upbeat, singsongy overview of each movement, which will appeal to a young audience. Further information overlaid atop the images dives deeper, providing context to encourage more nuanced conversations with a caregiver or teacher and cleverly extending the text’s target age range. More in-depth, bulleted explanations within the extensive backmatter will endear the book even to older elementary readers, though without references to source material, students will have to seek primary sources elsewhere. The protests highlighted in the text represent a wide range of time periods and racial and cultural backgrounds.
A moving historical protest primer that invites even the youngest readers to rise up and fight for what’s right. (timeline, map) (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 11, 2025
ISBN: 9798888593684
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2025
A common topic ably presented—with a participatory element adding an unusual and brilliant angle.
To the tune of a familiar ditty, budding paleontologists can march, dig, and sift with a crew of dinosaur hunters.
Modeling her narrative after “Here We Go ’Round the Mulberry Bush,” Lendroth (Old Manhattan Has Some Farms, 2014, etc.) invites readers to add appropriate actions and gestures as they follow four scientists—modeled by Kolar as doll-like figures of varied gender and racial presentation, with oversized heads to show off their broad smiles—on a dig. “This is the way we clean the bones, clean the bones, clean the bones. / This is the way we clean the bones on a warm and sunny morning.” The smiling paleontologists find, then carefully excavate, transport, and reassemble the fossil bones of a T. rex into a museum display. A fleshed-out view of the toothy specimen on a wordless spread brings the enterprise to a suitably dramatic climax, and unobtrusive notes in the lower corners capped by a closing overview add digestible quantities of dino-detail and context. As in Jessie Hartland’s How the Dinosaur Got to the Museum (2011), the combination of patterned text and bright cartoon pictures of scientists at accurately portrayed work offers just the ticket to spark or feed an early interest in matters prehistoric.
A common topic ably presented—with a participatory element adding an unusual and brilliant angle. (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-62354-104-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
It’s a bit sketchy of historical detail, but it’s coherent, inspirational, and engaging without indulging in rapturous...
A first introduction to the iconic civil rights activist.
“She was very little and very brave, and she always tried to do what was right.” Without many names or any dates, Kaiser traces Parks’ life and career from childhood to later fights for “fair schools, jobs, and houses for black people” as well as “voting rights, women’s rights and the rights of people in prison.” Though her refusal to change seats and the ensuing bus boycott are misleadingly presented as spontaneous acts of protest, young readers will come away with a clear picture of her worth as a role model. Though recognizable thanks to the large wire-rimmed glasses Parks sports from the outset as she marches confidently through Antelo’s stylized illustrations, she looks childlike throughout (as characteristic of this series), and her skin is unrealistically darkened to match the most common shade visible on other African-American figures. In her co-published Emmeline Pankhurst (illustrated by Ana Sanfelippo), Kaiser likewise simplistically implies that Great Britain led the way in granting universal women’s suffrage but highlights her subject’s courageous quest for justice, and Isabel Sánchez Vegara caps her profile of Audrey Hepburn (illustrated by Amaia Arrazola) with the moot but laudable claim that “helping people across the globe” (all of whom in the pictures are dark-skinned children) made Hepburn “happier than acting or dancing ever had.” All three titles end with photographs and timelines over more-detailed recaps plus at least one lead to further information.
It’s a bit sketchy of historical detail, but it’s coherent, inspirational, and engaging without indulging in rapturous flights of hyperbole. (Picture book/biography. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-78603-018-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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