Readable but limited and likely to be lost in the shuffle.
A tribute to the first Black woman to serve in Congress.
Brushing most of the biographical specifics into a closing timeline titled “The Chisholm Trail,” Cline-Ransome focuses on her subject’s pugnaciousness—following Shirley Chisholm from a child who was “always small, but she talked big, walked tall, and told just about everyone what to do” through the halls of state and then national government (“There may be some fireworks”) and her “Unbought and Unbossed” run for presidential candidate to retirement from Congress in 1983. Juanita punctuates scenes of Chisholm standing slender and confident in outsized eyeglasses and a crown of lacquered black hair before scowling (white male) opponents and racially diverse cheering crowds amid full-page emblematic outbursts—“What are you doing running for office?” “What does your husband think of all this?” “If you can’t support me, if you can’t endorse me, GET OUT OF MY WAY.” A closing gallery of political successors of color, from Barbara Jordan through Kamala Harris and Ilhan Omar, establishes her legacy, but she remains here no more than a distant, iconic figure. Readers may feel spoiled for choice, as this joins a recent gush of picture-book profiles, at least some of which offer warmer, more nuanced views of Chisholm as a person as well as a role model. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Readable but limited and likely to be lost in the shuffle. (author’s note, photo) (Picture-book biography. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2023
ISBN: 9781534463523
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
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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