A lovely story with many uses.
This true story shows how a boy in Malawi changed his family’s habits to improve gender equality.
Victor and Linesi are 8-year-old twins. Every morning, they say goodbye to Mama and race to the kachere tree, where they part ways. Victor, a boy, goes to school, but now Linesi, a girl, goes to the riverbed with a bucket to fetch water for the family, like the other women and older girls. At school, Victor enjoys English lessons from his funny teacher, and one day, Mr. Tambala talks about gender equality. The homework is to notice whether boys and girls are treated equally. After school, Victor notices that the girls do chores while the boys go to school, play games, and do homework. He decides to try to teach Linesi at night, but it doesn’t work. He talks to his family, and they agree to make a change: Victor and Linesi start taking turns going to school and fetching water. Soon, their friends make a similar change, and perhaps more changes will come to their village. This inspiring story is a thoughtful representation of a community on the brink of change. Victor shows how an individual’s actions can ripple out to change a culture and others’ lives. The joyful illustrations make clever use of full scenes and boxed vignettes to show activities, dreams, and choices within a visually monochromatic setting. The characters’ smiling faces defy stereotypes and offer hope. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A lovely story with many uses. (author's note, resources, glossary) (Informational picture book. 4-10)Pub Date: June 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0249-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
Enthusiastic and direct, this paean has a lovely ring to it.
Former National Youth Poet Laureate Gorman invites girls to raise their voices and make a difference.
“Today, we finally have a say,” proclaims the first-person plural narration as three girls (one presents Black, another is brown-skinned, and the third is light-skinned) pass one another marshmallows on a stick around a campfire. In Wise’s textured, almost three-dimensional illustrations, the trio traverse fantastical, often abstract landscapes, playing, demonstrating, eating, and even flying, while confident rhymes sing their praises and celebrate collective female victories. The phrase “LIBERATION. FREEDOM. RESPECT” appears on a protest sign that bookends their journey. Simple and accessible, the rhythmic visual storytelling presents an optimistic vision of young people working toward a better world. Sometimes family members or other diverse comrades surround the girls, emphasizing that power comes from community. Gorman is careful to specify that “some of us go by she / And some of us go by they.” She affirms, too, that each person is “a different shape and size,” though the art doesn’t show much variation in body type. Characters also vary in ability. Real-life figures emerge as the girls dream of past luminaries such as author Octavia Butler and activist Marsha P. Johnson, along with present-day role models including poet and journalist Plestia Alaqad and athlete Sha’carri Richardson; silhouettes stand in for heroines as yet unknown. Imagining that “we are where change is going” is hopeful indeed.
Enthusiastic and direct, this paean has a lovely ring to it. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780593624180
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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