From Lewin (Fair!, 1997, etc.), a memorable assortment of anecdotes and encounters that weren’t, for one reason or another, picture-book material. At a page or two each, they never form a connected narrative, but make vivid, stand-alone verbal snapshots, “taken” in Botswana, Egypt, Norway, and other exotic places: witnessing the killing and butchering of a wildebeest in the Kalahari; nervously pushing a truck over a submerged bridge past the “DANGER—CROCODILES” sign; laughing as a caribou deliberately spooks a group of hikers in Alaska, then turning to see a grizzly not 50 feet away; visiting a brawling Egyptian camel market; renting a jeep from the king of Ranthambor, India; vainly trying to stop the fire from smoking in a reindeer-hide tepee 125 miles above the Arctic Circle. Illustrated with a glossy section of watercolor sketches and full-color photos, these vignettes are written with an eye for arresting detail, plus the offhand humor that made Lewin’s memoir, I Was a Teenage Professional Wrestler (1993) such a delight. (Memoir. 10-12)
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-688-14109-9
Page Count: 68
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
Prose poems celebrate the feats of young heroines, some of them famous, and some not as well-known. Paul (Hello Toes! Hello Feet!, 1998, etc.) recounts moments in the lives of women such as Rachel Carson, Amelia Earhart, and Wilma Rudolph; these moments don’t necessarily reflect what made them famous as much as they are pivotal events in their youth that influenced the direction of their lives. For Earhart, it was sliding down the roof of the tool shed in a home-made roller coaster: “It’s like flying!” For Rudolph, it was the struggle to learn to walk without her foot brace. Other women, such as Violet Sheehy, who rescued her family from a fire in Hinckley, Minnesota, or Harriet Hanson, a union supporter in the fabric mills of Massachusetts, are celebrated for their brave decisions made under extreme duress. Steirnagle’s sweeping paintings powerfully exude the strength of character exhibited by these young women. A commemorative book, that honors both quiet and noisy acts of heroism. (Picture book/poetry. 6-9)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201477-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Ringgold’s biography of Rosa Parks packs substantial material into a few pages, but with a light touch, and with the ring of authenticity that gives her act of weary resistance all the respect it deserves. Narrating the book is the bus that Parks took that morning 45 years ago; it recounts the signal events in Parks’s life to a young girl who boarded it to go to school. A decent amount of the material will probably be new to children, for Parks is so intimately associated with the Montgomery Bus Boycott that her work with the NAACP before the bus incident is often overlooked, as is her later role as a community activist in Detroit with Congressman John Conyers. Ringgold, through the bus, also informs readers of Parks’s youth in rural Alabama, where Klansmen and nightriders struck fear into the lives of African-Americans. These experiences make her refusal to release her seat all the more courageous, for the consequences of resistance were not gentle. All the events are depicted in emotive naive artwork that underscores their truth; Ringgold delivers Parks’s story without hyperbole, but rather as a life lived with pride, conviction, and consequence. (Picture book/biography. 5-9)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-689-81892-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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PERSPECTIVES
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