Gives readers excellent reasons to remember this pioneering woman politician.
One of the least-known members of the original She Persisted pantheon gets her due.
Margaret Chase was born in the mostly White mill town of Skowhegan, Maine, in 1897. From girlhood, she was a hard worker, first in the home (she was the oldest of six) and then in the community. A job as a telephone operator cultivated what would much later be called networking skills, and thanks to her work ethic and confident independence, she became a leader among professional women both local and statewide and won election to the town council twice. In 1930, she married local politician Clyde Smith, masterfully running his successful campaign for Congress. When he died, she ran for—and won—his seat, serving in Congress for several terms before winning election to the Senate. It was there, as a freshman Republican senator, that she faced down Joseph McCarthy and his enablers with her “Declaration of Conscience” speech. Though Shamir neglects to name the speech, she provides a cogent, age-appropriate summary of McCarthyism as well as giving her young readers an excellent overview of U.S. electoral politics and the structure of the federal government. She also makes clear the unique challenges that Smith faced as a woman in mostly male spaces throughout her career, up to her 1964 run for the Republican nomination for president.
Gives readers excellent reasons to remember this pioneering woman politician. (suggested activities, bibliography) (Biography. 6-9)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-11589-3
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Sept. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2021
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
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
BOOK REVIEW
Blandly laudatory.
The iconic animator introduces young readers to each “happy place” in his life.
The tally begins with his childhood home in Marceline, Missouri, and climaxes with Disneyland (carefully designed to be “the happiest place on Earth”), but the account really centers on finding his true happy place, not on a map but in drawing. In sketching out his early flubs and later rocket to the top, the fictive narrator gives Ub Iwerks and other Disney studio workers a nod (leaving his labor disputes with them unmentioned) and squeezes in quick references to his animated films, from Steamboat Willie to Winnie the Pooh (sans Fantasia and Song of the South). Eliopoulos incorporates stills from the films into his cartoon illustrations and, characteristically for this series, depicts Disney as a caricature, trademark mustache in place on outsized head even in childhood years and child sized even as an adult. Human figures default to white, with occasional people of color in crowd scenes and (ahistorically) in the animation studio. One unidentified animator builds up the role-modeling with an observation that Walt and Mickey were really the same (“Both fearless; both resourceful”). An assertion toward the end—“So when do you stop being a child? When you stop dreaming”—muddles the overall follow-your-bliss message. A timeline to the EPCOT Center’s 1982 opening offers photos of the man with select associates, rodent and otherwise. An additional series entry, I Am Marie Curie, publishes simultaneously, featuring a gowned, toddler-sized version of the groundbreaking physicist accepting her two Nobel prizes.
Blandly laudatory. (bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2875-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
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