Will serve to empower children who feel as powerless as Thurgood Marshall once felt.
Born, raised, and educated in segregated early-20th-century Baltimore, Thurgood Marshall did not allow what he saw around him to determine who he could become.
Though he was too young to make changes to the systems that kept Black people from enjoying the same rights and spaces as White people, Marshall knew that he wanted to find a way to improve the world in which he lived. It was a fateful day when he was caught misbehaving and was punished by being forced to read the U.S. Constitution. That punishment developed his interest in the law and, eventually, debate. Readers learn that not only did Marshall win the case that integrated the University of Maryland, the institution that barred him from attending its law school, but he presented several cases before the Supreme Court—including Brown v. Board of Education—before he became a justice in 1967. Marshall’s life is detailed in bite-size pieces that make this book incredibly useful for reading and research by young students. The backmatter includes a timeline of Marshall’s life, a list of his major cases, and a bibliography for further reading. Many of Freeman’s illustrations incorporate text; in one scene, a young Marshall confronts a dizzying array of “Whites Only” and “Colored Section” signs; in another, he’s framed in a crossword-puzzle grid including terms such as justice and equality. (This book was reviewed digitally with 12-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Will serve to empower children who feel as powerless as Thurgood Marshall once felt. (Picture book/biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Jan. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-291251-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
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
A picture book more than worthy of sharing the shelf with Alan Schroeder and Jerry Pinkney’s Minty (1996) and Carole Boston...
A memorable, lyrical reverse-chronological walk through the life of an American icon.
In free verse, Cline-Ransome narrates the life of Harriet Tubman, starting and ending with a train ride Tubman takes as an old woman. “But before wrinkles formed / and her eyes failed,” Tubman could walk tirelessly under a starlit sky. Cline-Ransome then describes the array of roles Tubman played throughout her life, including suffragist, abolitionist, Union spy, and conductor on the Underground Railroad. By framing the story around a literal train ride, the Ransomes juxtapose the privilege of traveling by rail against Harriet’s earlier modes of travel, when she repeatedly ran for her life. Racism still abounds, however, for she rides in a segregated train. While the text introduces readers to the details of Tubman’s life, Ransome’s use of watercolor—such a striking departure from his oil illustrations in many of his other picture books—reveals Tubman’s humanity, determination, drive, and hope. Ransome’s lavishly detailed and expansive double-page spreads situate young readers in each time and place as the text takes them further into the past.
A picture book more than worthy of sharing the shelf with Alan Schroeder and Jerry Pinkney’s Minty (1996) and Carole Boston Weatherford and Kadir Nelson’s Moses (2006). (Picture book/biography. 5-8)Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8234-2047-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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