bookshelf

PUT YOUR SHOES ON & GET READY!

Name: PUT YOUR SHOES ON & GET READY!
Author: Raphael G. Warnock
ISBN: 978-0-593-52887-7

by Raphael G. Warnock ; illustrated by TeMika Grooms ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 10, 2023

Good-humored inspiration from heel to toe.

bookshelf

Georgia’s first Black senator urges readers to get up, get dressed, and find the right shoes for what they’re going to do.

Warnock offers a shoe-based view of his own experiences—donning boots each summer to help his dad haul old cars and church shoes on Sundays to hear him preach, high-tops to play basketball, and pastor and activist shoes as a grown-up. Though he became a pastor at the same Baptist church where Martin Luther King Jr. preached, he notes with humility that he “never thought it was [his] job to walk in” those shoes but to find his own, and now, after his election, he wears lace-ups for his job of helping people. Fondly watching his own children clomping around in his shoes, he tells them what his father told him: “You have to put on shoes that fit your feet—shoes for the job you’re meant to do.” Often taking ground-level perspectives to focus attention on the footwear, Grooms depicts the author recognizably in uncrowded settings that usually include racially and ethnically diverse company. A final scene of the senator sitting with a group of diverse but not individualized children does skate close to blandness, but overall the art’s clean hues and smiling faces create an atmosphere more buoyant than stale for the lightly delivered message. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Good-humored inspiration from heel to toe. (Picture-book autobiography. 6-8)

Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023

ISBN: 978-0-593-52887-7

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Philomel

Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022

Categories:

CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

- PERSPECTIVES
7 Inspirational Picture Books About Changemakers

bookshelf

BASKETBALL DREAMS

by Chris Paul ; illustrated by Courtney Lovett ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 10, 2023

Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.

bookshelf

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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | CHILDREN'S FAMILY | CHILDREN'S ENTERTAINMENT & SPORTS

- BOOK REVIEW
LONG SHOT
by Chris Paul & illustrated by Frank Morrison

bookshelf

I AM RUBY BRIDGES

by Ruby Bridges ; illustrated by Nikkolas Smith ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 6, 2022

A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era.

bookshelf

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)