Review of Unspeakable, by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Floyd Cooper

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Unspeakable

The Tulsa Race Massacre

by Carole Boston Weatherford
illustrated by Floyd Cooper

Carolrhoda Books, 2021. 36 pages.
Review written February 23, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

This picture book tells about the Tulsa Race Massacre simply, in a way that will haunt you.

The book begins with pictures and text about the prospering and thriving Black community in Greenwood, Oklahoma. We see the train tracks between the Black and white communities in Tulsa, and hear about all the businesses in Greenwood, some the largest Black-owned in the nation. The business district was called Black Wall Street.

Each section starts with “Once upon a time in Greenwood…” and we hear of all the thriving businesses and opportunities and see pictures of happy people enjoying them.

There were also several libraries, a hospital,
a post office, and a separate school system,
where some say Black children
got a better education than whites.

Another page shows the “grand homes of doctors, lawyers, and prominent businessmen.”

A little past the halfway point in the book is a turning point in the story, on a page mostly dark:

But in 1921, not everyone in Tulsa was pleased
with these signs of Black wealth – undeniable proof
that African Americans could achieve
just as much, if not more than, whites.

All it took was one elevator ride,
one seventeen-year-old white elevator operator
accusing a nineteen-year-old Black shoeshine man
of assault for simmering hatred to boil over.

The accused man was put in jail, and the white-owned newspaper urged readers to “nab” him.

There was a confrontation on May 31, 1921 of two thousand armed whites with thirty armed Black men trying to protect the accused. That was the beginning.

But then the mob turned on the rest of Greenwood and burned homes and businesses. They blocked firefighters from putting out the fires.

These pages don’t show pretty scenes.

Once upon a time in Greenwood,

up to three hundred Black people,
including Dr. Jackson, were killed.

Hundreds more were injured.
More than eight thousand people

were left homeless.
And hundreds of businesses

and other establishments
were reduced to ash.

After details about the massacre, the story part ends with Tulsa’s Reconciliation Park as it exists today.

There are detailed notes at the back and endpapers with a photograph of the devastated and desolate community – all the more hard-hitting after seeing the pictures of the community when it was thriving.

This is a sad story I only heard about last summer. It’s a story that Americans should know, and this book presents the difficult truth in a way that children can grasp.

lernerbooks.com

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Review of A Sporting Chance, by Lori Alexander, illustrated by Allan Drummond

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

A Sporting Chance

How Ludwig Guttmann Created the Paralympic Games

by Lori Alexander
illustrated by Allan Drummond

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020. 114 pages.
Review written January 13, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

This nonfiction book for upper elementary and middle school students hits the sweet spot of children’s nonfiction. It’s got lots of information about a fascinating high-interest topic and it mixes plenty of engaging illustrations with historical photographs that surprise the reader.

The introductory chapter is about an English soldier who was paralyzed during World War II at a time when such people were put in a full-body cast and declared “incurable.” Then it goes on to tell about Ludwig Guttmann, who changed all that.

Ludwig Guttmann was Jewish, born in Germany in 1899. He escaped two world wars – the first one because he had an infection on his neck and the second one after he had been removed from his position in a hospital and finally realized that it was dangerous to stay in Germany. However, before he left Germany, the book follows his interest and expertise learning about caring for paraplegics.

In Great Britain, at first Ludwig wasn’t trusted to care for patients, so he did research. That research helped him when he got a chance to run a hospital for paraplegics after the war was over. He refused to see them as incurable and had far better records of successful healing than anywhere else in the world.

But it was the patients who first started playing team sports with one another, starting a spontaneous game of wheelchair polo. Ludwig saw how much it lifted their spirits as well as strengthening their bodies, and encouraged it as competition. Then they began inviting other hospitals to contribute teams, and then other countries. Eventually, it became affiliated with the Olympic games and the Paralympic games were born.

This book does a great job of telling about Ludwig but also about the amazing difference he made in the lives of disabled people.

The last chapter features six athletes from different parts of the world with different disabilities who have competed and won in different sports at the Paralympic Games.

This book is both inspiring and fascinating. All the photos and illustrations make it a quick and satisfying reading experience.

lorialexanderbooks.com
allandrummond.com
hmhbooks.com

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Review of Child of St. Kilda, by Beth Waters

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Child of St. Kilda

by Beth Waters

Child’s Play, 2019. 72 pages.
Review written October 3, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review
2020 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#6 Children’s Nonfiction Picture Books

Here’s a lovely picture book for older elementary school readers. It tells about the remote island community of St. Kilda in northern Scotland. Conditions there were rugged and harsh, and the last settlers left the islands in 1930, after they had been inhabited for at least 4,000 years.

The story is told from the perspective of Norman John Gillies, who was born on the island of Hirta in St. Kilda in 1925. It tells what life was like on the islands as he knew it, and then how his life changed when the entire community moved away. Norman John was the last person alive who had lived on St. Kilda.

The book gives us painting of the wildlife and landscapes of the islands and tells about their rugged way of life. Some of the animals there aren’t found anywhere else in the world, because of how remote the islands are.

It tells about the community there and how they’d be cut off from the mainland for weeks at a time. They didn’t use money and paid rent in feathers, oil, and tweed. They worked together on various tasks for making food and clothing.

Here’s a story that came with a striking picture of the cliffs:

Between the months of March and November, collecting birds and eggs was the main activity.

The men climbed down the steep cliffs, using nothing but a simple handmade rope tied round their waist. They caught birds with a snare and also collected their eggs. Climbing barefoot gave a better grip, but it was still very dangerous work. It is said that the ankles of St Kildan men were much thicker than those of people from the mainland and their toes were much further apart.

The boys started climbing at about 10 years old, which must have been very scary! Norman John’s uncle, Finlay MacQueen, was the best climber of his day.

They would divide the catch among the whole community.

The book tells about school, church, and some interesting mail traditions.

But it was in the 1900s, when visitors began coming to the islands, that things began to change. As with other populations that met Europeans, the islanders didn’t have immunity to diseases that the visitors exposed them to, so many people died of illness. There was also the problem of young people deciding to move away where it wasn’t so hard to make a living. Some more disasters hit, and eventually, in 1930, when Norman John was five years old, the islanders were evacuated.

This book tells a story that’s fascinating and unusual. It does a good job of explaining why the people had to leave, while at the same time showing beautiful things about the rugged life on the islands. And it tells about Norman John’s years growing up on the mainland, happily remembering St Kilda.

childs-play.com

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Review of Martin Rising, by Andrea Davis Pinkney, paintings by Brian Pinkney

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Poetry, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Martin Rising

Requiem for a King

by Andrea Davis Pinkney
paintings by Brian Pinkney

Scholastic Press, January 2018. 128 pages.
Starred Review
2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#9 Longer Children’s Nonfiction

I’m writing this review on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday in 2018. It’s a shame I can’t post it today, but I have to remain silent online about any 2018 children’s books until after we announce our Newbery winners.

This book is poetry combined with art, telling about the events that happened 50 years ago in 1968, the last months of Martin’s life.

I have to confess I’m not the best audience for unrhymed poetry. I haven’t spoken with anyone else yet about this book, and I have a feeling that when I do, others will be able to point out details of the craft that went right by me.

But what we have here is history in the form of poetry. There is symbolism – a progression from daylight to darkness to dawn. Some more symbolism that even I could catch was in a poem about forcing forsythia to bloom where that’s compared with forcing garbage collectors in Tennessee to do degrading work in harsh conditions. March is said to come in like a lion – but no progress is made, and it leaves much more quietly.

And the event that sparks the chain of events in this book was the death of two sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, and the protests that sparked. There are lots of facts here – you’ll learn about what happened, along with the dignity and nobility of those who protested.

(I’m now going to pause and reread the book as a fitting way of celebrating Martin Luther King’s birthday.)

Here are some good bits:

In the poem “Come: February 24, 1968”:

But, Lord,
even with your handiwork
hard at work,
it is hard, hard work
not to strike back violently,
especially when you’re striking.

In the poem “Roar! March 11, 1968”:

These strikers have volunteered for
peaceful protest.

When the police handcuff
and shove them,
and choke hold their hope,
and cart them away,
these men and women,
and girls and boys
who have volunteered
for self-dignity,
will not
enter jail
in the same way
March
enters the calendar.

These strong, quiet
strikers,
and all who stand by them
refuse to Roar.

Going out like lambs,
they are ignored.

From the final poem, “Rejoice the Legacy: January 15 – Martin Luther King Day – Forever”:

And so, today, though his candles stopped
at thirty-nine,
we celebrate Martin’s exquisite life.

His sparkling-eyed vision
of tomorrow’s promise.
His destiny.
His dream.

How he led us to the mountaintop
on the path of light, love, and truth.
He didn’t get there with us.
But he showed us the way.

So that’s this book – a poetic tribute to Martin Luther King’s life and the story of his final months. I love the suggestion in the author’s note at the back to perform these as a group reading or as a classroom play. It is all too easy to rush through these poems. I’m pretty sure that the harder I look at them, the more riches I’ll find.

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Source: This review is based on a book sent by the publisher.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of The Grand Escape, by Neal Bascomb

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

The Grand Escape

The Greatest Prison Breakout of the 20th Century

by Neal Bascomb

Arthur A. Levine Books (Scholastic), 2018. 275 pages.
Starred Review
Review written October 27, 2018, from my own copy, sent by the publisher
2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#7 Longer Children’s Nonfiction

This nonfiction book reads like a thriller. It covers a breakout from a prisoner of war camp in Germany during World War I.

The book gives us background first about how the war was going, and we meet several individuals important in planning the escape. Most of them had some earlier attempts at escape.

One particularly heart-wrenching attempt was a guy who almost made it to the border – and then he saw a town that matched the name of the Dutch town on his map. Well, it turned out there were two towns with the same name on either side of the border. He was in the German town, and got taken back to camp.

The grand escape of the title happened from Holzminden Camp and involved digging a long tunnel. It was a long, involved process, and we learn all about it in this book.

Usually I read nonfiction slowly, a chapter at a time, and break it up with fiction books in between. But this book was mesmerizing. I wanted to know how they would pull it off and which of these men would make it.

IReadYA.com
arthuralevinebooks.com

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Source: This review is based on a book sent by the publisher.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of The Women of the 116th Congress: Portraits of Power

Current Issues, History, Nonfiction Review, Photography, Starred Review, True Stories 0

The Women of the 116th Congress

Portraits of Power

Foreword by Roxane Gay

Portraits by Elizabeth D. Herman and Celeste Sloman

Abrams Image, 2019. 208 pages.
Review written September 5, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

Here’s a lovely book that fills my heart with pride in our nation. It consists of 130 portraits of the 131 women (one was not available) serving in the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States of America after the 2018 elections.

The portraits are presented alphabetically by the state each woman represents. A list of firsts that woman has achieved are presented, many of them being the first woman from their state or their district in the House or the Senate, or the first woman of their ethnicity or religion or sexual orientation. And there’s a paragraph quote from each woman talking about what it means to them to serve in the United States Congress.

Throughout the book, there are short interruptions with spreads about historic women who paved the way for these ones, such as Jeannette Pickering Rankin: “I may be the first woman member of Congress, but I won’t be the last.” Or Shirley Anita Chisholm: “In the end anti-black, anti-female, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing: anti-humanism.”

I never thought of it as an important cause to elect more women to Congress – until I looked through this book and it made me so happy and proud. I love to think that the day will come when we can look back on the 116th Congress and think how relatively few women they included back then.

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Review of The Eye That Never Sleeps, by Marissa Moss, illustrations by Jeremy Holmes

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

The Eye That Never Sleeps

How Detective Pinkerton Saved President Lincoln

by Marissa Moss
illustrations by Jeremy Holmes

Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2018. 48 pages.
Starred Review
Review written November 7, 2018, from a library book
2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#7 Children’s Nonfiction Picture Books

This picture book biography is a fun and entertaining – while factual – story of how the detective Allan Pinkerton became a detective and ended up saving President Lincoln and founding the Secret Service.

The illustrator gave the pages the look of the time but with contemporary colors. Pinkerton fled Scotland on his wedding day, and this story is told with the pictures as well as the text. The Pinkerton agency eventually became known as “the eye that never sleeps,” and Pinkerton’s eyes – and the direction of his vision – are highlighted in orange throughout the book.

The complete package of words and pictures here keeps you turning pages, with the illustrations including panels that almost give the book a graphic novel feel.

Pinkerton did keep Lincoln safe after uncovering a plot to assassinate him when he was first elected. They used a decoy and sent him to Washington by a different route. The book also includes how Pinkerton became a detective and how he was the reason the term “private eye” was coined.

A fun and suspenseful story that’s also true.

abramsyoungreaders.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of A Game of Birds and Wolves, by Simon Parkin

History, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

A Game of Birds and Wolves

The Ingenious Young Women Whose Secret Board Game Helped Win World War II

by Simon Parkin

Little, Brown and Company, 2020. 310 pages.
Review written April 23, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

A Game of Birds and Wolves is the story of how Great Britain used an elaborate war game to strategize and win the war against the U-boats during World War II.

I hadn’t realized how important the Battle of the Atlantic was. Britain came perilously close to starving. During World War II, 2,603 merchant ships and 175 naval vessels escorting merchant convoys were sunk. More than 30,000 merchant seamen and more than 6,000 Royal Navy sailors died in the Atlantic, mostly because of attacks from U-boats.

The subtitle is a little bit misleading. This book is mostly about the man, Gilbert Roberts, who developed the giant board game and taught it to British naval officers. But his staff, the people running the game, were indeed women, officers in the Wrens, the branch of the British navy for women.

I’ve been reading a lot of children’s nonfiction, so I did get impatient with the extreme level of detail in this book. We hear about the establishment of the Wrens, about specific ships getting sunk in the Atlantic, about the glamorous lives on shore of U-boat commanders, and how Gilbert Roberts had been rejected by the navy. It seemed like the first half of the book was establishing the many, many different characters and the situations for both the Germans and the British.

But the tension does heighten as the WATU – the Western Approaches Tactical Unit – begins deducing the strategies that U-boats were using and developing ways to combat it. At the same time, we read about an admiral asking for more U-boats and finally getting them. It all builds to a dramatic battle where one of the Wrens charting the position of the ships in a giant sea battle is aware that her fiancé is in the thick of things.

As a gamer, it made sense to me that playing strategy games helps admirals devise effective strategies in real-life scenarios. They developed a 6-day course and captains coming in from time at sea would go through the course. They simulated visibility at sea by putting the captains behind a canvas screen and plotting the positions of small models of ships on the linoleum floor. They used green chalk for the U-boats, which couldn’t be seen from an angle. They made a dramatic simulation before computers could be used to do it.

The Wrens on staff were responsible for moving the models and marking the courses of the ships and U-boats involved. I enjoyed the scene where they had a young Wren play a scenario against a high ranking naval officer. She was experienced with the game and soundly defeated him.

It all gives an interesting side of World War II that I’d never heard about before.

simonparkin.com
littlebrown.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Strong Voices, introductions by Tonya Bolden, illustrated by Eric Velasquez

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Strong Voices

Fifteen American Speeches Worth Knowing

Introductions by Tonya Bolden
illustrated by Eric Velasquez
foreword by Cokie Roberts

Harper, 2020. 128 pages.
Review written April 9, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

This is a book of great American speeches, so it is by its very nature inspiring. I was familiar with more than half of them, but I’m happy to have made a new acquaintance with the rest, and this is a fine collection covering the scope of the history of our nation and the important issues we’ve faced.

Tonya Bolden has written a detailed introduction to each piece and the speaker, and the speeches are spread out nicely on the pages, beginning with a spread that includes a painting of the speaker. The attractive format of the book appropriately showcases the words.

The speeches chosen place an emphasis on rights and freedoms, but also on inspirational challenges. It begins with Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” in 1775, and finishes with Hillary Rodham Clinton’s “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights” in 1995.

In between, of course we’ve got Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself,” and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream,” but we’ve also got a speech in 1805 by the Native American Red Jacket, “We Never Quarrel About Religion,” Lou Gehrig’s “Farewell to Baseball,” and Fannie Lou Hamer’s “I Question America.”

There’s a Timeline at the back. At first I liked how it places all the speeches on the line with historical events marked as well, going from the Boston Tea Party in 1773 to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s speech in 1995. I also liked that it has a series of shaded dots next to the line for long time periods – various wars, as well as the Jim Crow laws. But then I noticed that the spacing between things on the timeline isn’t proportional at all. World War I, from 1914-1918, takes up five shaded dots, for example, but World War II, 1939-1945, takes up thirteen shaded dots. But the Vietnam War, 1955-1975, takes up 93 shaded dots. So it’s mainly to lay out the events and speeches in order, and they’re spaced out to read clearly, but not so much to reflect how long different things lasted. So the timeline makes it look like the speeches were spaced out evenly throughout American history, but actually six of the fifteen happened after 1950.

Reading this book made me want to stand with these Americans and continue working for freedom and justice! I hope it will inspire children and teens the same way.

tonyaboldenbooks.com
ericvelasquez.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Lights! Camera! Alice! by Mara Rockliff, illustrated by Simona Ciraolo

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Lights! Camera! Alice!

The Thrilling True Adventures of the First Woman Filmmaker

by Mara Rockliff
illustrated by Simona Ciraolo

Chronicle Books, 2018. 56 pages.
Starred Review
2018 Sonderbooks Stand-out:
#4 Children’s Nonfiction Picture Books

Who knew? One of the first people to create movies was a woman! This is from the note at the back:

Alice Guy-Blaché (1875-1968) was the first woman in the world to make movies – and one of the very first moviemakers, period. Long before Hollywood turned from silent films to “talkies,” Alice directed the first sound films ever made. She was also one of the first to film made-up stories instead of real events. (Some historians say she was the first, while others credit the Lumière brothers or Georges Méliès.) Between 1896 and 1920, Alice made over seven hundred movies, and her studio, Solax, produced hundreds more. She truly earned the title “Mother of the Movies.”

This picture book biography dramatizes Alice’s life without enormous amount of text and plenty of visuals. She grew up in France and got her start there, but came to America and made movies outside New York City. But the rise of Hollywood and the start of World War I meant her studio went out of business.

Each “episode” of her life has a “title card” like the old-fashioned title cards used in silent movies, and it turns out that each one is the title of a movie Alice made, with titles like “A Terrible Catastrophe,” “The Great Discovery,” “Starting Something,” “Imagination,” and “Her Great Adventure.”

There’s lots of back matter, and I took the time to look up one of Alice’s short films on YouTube. I was quite taken with this amazing woman I’d never heard of before – who changed the world.

mararockliff.com
chroniclekids.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

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