Review of Drawing on Walls, by Matthew Burgess, pictures by Josh Cochran

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Drawing on Walls

A Story of Keith Haring

by Matthew Burgess

pictures by Josh Cochran

Enchanted Lion Books, 2020. 60 pages.
Review written October 3, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

This extra-large picture book biography of Keith Haring is exuberant and joyful – like the subject’s work.

It emphasizes how much Keith related to children and how much he valued the reactions of people to his work. The book begins with action:

Here is Keith Haring painting a mural with hundreds of children in Tama City, Japan.

Keith draws the outlines and the kids fill them in with their own designs.

It goes on to tell about his childhood and drawing together with his dad. Even when he was young, his art spilled out and all over the place.

Different phases of his life are told about with bright and colorful pictures. We see him ignoring boundaries and following his dreams. The book nicely communicates what was important to Keith in a few sentences and episodes like these:

Keith especially liked painting on the floor by the open door where the sunlight poured in.
People passing on the street would stop to watch or talk with him about what he was making. Keith loved it!…

One day in the subway, Keith noticed blank panels where advertisements used to be.
Suddenly, he zipped up to the street, bought a box of white chalk, dashed back downstairs…
and began drawing on the walls.

People paused as they rushed from here to there.
For Keith, this was what art was all about – the moment when people see it and respond.

Maybe it makes them smile,
maybe it makes them think,
maybe it inspires them to draw
or dance or write or sing.

This is a lovely celebration of an artist who painted with joy.

enchantedlion.com

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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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*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books!

Review of ¡Ay, Mija! by Christine Suggs

Biography, Graphic Memoir, Teen Nonfiction 0

¡Ay, Mija!

My Bilingual Summer in Mexico

by Christine Suggs

Little, Brown and Company, 2023. 328 pages.
Review written April 27, 2023, from a library book

¡Ay, Mija! Is one of those wonderful creations – a graphic novel memoir looking back on what it was like to be a teen figuring things out.

In this book, Christine Suggs tells about traveling on their own to visit their mother’s family in Mexico. Their Spanish wasn’t very good at the start, but they loved these people, and that love was returned. We see them carrying out more interactions as the visit goes on.

They also, naturally enough, have questions about their identity. They see things in their Mexican family that they’ve inherited, like a love of pan dulce. But their father is a pale white American, and their skin is lighter than any of their relatives in Mexico. And their Spanish isn’t very good, so they don’t always understand what their relatives are saying.

I love their drawing style, simple and loose. I could mostly keep track of who was who, and I enjoyed the little character they used to express their own thoughts and feelings in dialog.

I have never taken a Spanish class, though when I was in grad school I lived in a Spanish-speaking neighborhood of Los Angeles, and part of the time reading this book felt like that. I started to let the Spanish words rush over me. Though I think that accurately reflects how the author felt.

I do think this book would be perfect for someone who’s studied Spanish a little bit and would help them progress. There are a few English translations given, but mostly what’s on the page progresses as Christine progresses – and I was left a little behind by that. Though in a graphic novel, the pictures convey enough of the story, I didn’t feel lost. So I do think this strategy worked for this book, even though for me personally I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I would have if I felt like I understood more of the words used.

But even with my lack of Spanish slowing me down, I still thought this was a lovely story of making family connections and a teen making their way outside their comfort zone.

christinesuggs.com

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Review of Jane Austen: A Life, by Claire Tomalin

Austenalia, Biography, Nonfiction Review, True Stories 0

Jane Austen

A Life

by Claire Tomalin

Vintage Books, 1999. First published in 1997.
Review written July 6, 2021, from a library book

Okay, I’ve been posting back reviews without a page on my main website, but this one gets a page, because it needs to go on my Austenalia page.

In June 2021, I got to attend a virtual symposium on Jane Austen, sponsored by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Jane Austen Summer Program. This book was the assigned reading for this year’s program, along with a volume of Jane Austen’s letters.

I wish I had finished the assigned reading before the symposium! I would have done better in the trivia game. It’s been a long time since I was in college, and I’ve gotten out of the habit of worrying about deadlines.

This book is a thorough look at Jane Austen’s life and her world. It’s fascinating – at least if you’re a Jane Austen fan. I think I actually enjoyed it more because of having first read The Jane Austen Project where time travelers go back in time and insinuate themselves into Jane’s life in order to try to get copies of the letters her sister destroyed and the finished copy of The Watsons. The details of her life from that fictionalized version stuck in my head more completely, but this helped fill in details.

The Jane Austen Summer Program also helped me understand nuances of her life. Even virtual, they sent goodies to those who ordered the extra package. So I learned how to make a fashionable Regency turban and learned how to write with a quill pen with authentic ink. There were also context corners about things like celebrities of Jane Austen’s day, attitudes toward motherhood at the time, the art she would have seen at the Exhibition, and other kinds of amazing details. I got to be in a discussion group led by an English professor who’s written a book on the Regency.

Again, I wish I had finished this book before the program, because I would have had more to bring to the discussion. But I did finish it soon after, and have a much deeper understanding of how amazing her accomplishments were for a woman of her time.
Oh, and I’m slowly reading her letters as well. I think those would be almost incomprehensible without reading this book as well – because I now know whom she’s talking about and what situations she was in. I can more thoroughly appreciate her wit and eye for story.

vintagebooks.com

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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 In-Between, by Katie Van Heidrich

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

The In-Between

A Memoir in Verse

by Katie Van Heidrich

Aladdin, 2023. 295 pages.
Review written September 12, 2023, from a book sent to me by the publisher.
Starred Review

The In-Between tells the story of Katie’s family when her mother was in between jobs and they were in between homes.

It starts in an awful way (awful for Katie, but well-written for us). Katie is thirteen, and she and her mother and two younger siblings come home from their Grandpa’s funeral after an eight-hour drive to learn that their landlord didn’t feed the pets as he’d promised. Their dog is whimpering in her crate and the fish are belly-up in their tank.

Their mother takes everything in, then grabs the fish tank and takes it out their front door.

Mom? I ask nervously.
She doesn’t answer or
bother looking my way.
Instead, she holds the fish tank
high above her head,
careful not to drip
any of the rancid water
over herself and
without announcement or explanation,
sends the entire tank crashing
down
down
down
below,
exploding right onto
our landlord’s doorstep downstairs.

They pack up, as they’ve done many times, and leave that apartment. They end up staying in an Extended Stay Hotel for weeks, while Katie’s mother looks for a job. They spend weekends at their father’s place in the suburbs, but the rest of the time when they’re not at school, they’re all together in one room.

Katie doesn’t want her friends to know what’s going on. And she needs to make sure the school doesn’t know, since the hotel is not in the same school district. And she wonders why their dad won’t take them all the time and how to navigate her mother’s moods.

There are photos at the back, and I especially like the smiling author photo on the back flap – so we know that Katie got through this and emerged resilient.

I’ve found
that the in-between doesn’t have to be
the very end of the world and
that sometimes,
we just have to keep going
and face what scares us,
including ourselves,
especially ourselves,
because
sometimes,
that’s all you can do.

This is a promising debut book. I hope we’ll hear more from this author!

simonandschuster.com/kids

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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 Chance, by Uri Shulevitz

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Chance

Escape from the Holocaust

by Uri Shulevitz

Farrar Straus Giroux, 2020. 330 pages.
Review written March 22, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

When Uri Shulevitz was four years old, bombs fell on Warsaw, where he lived with his parents. But Uri’s father was in Bialystok, where he had found work. A chance encounter led to him not returning to Nazi-occupied Poland, but instead writing to his wife to come with Uri to Bialystok. They were Jewish, and all their family who stayed in Warsaw were killed during the war.

This book tells about Uri’s life as a very young refugee. A series of apparently chance encounters led them deeper into the Soviet Union. A clerk would not grant them Soviet citizenship because of Uri’s name. Uri was actually named after the father of Bezalel, the first artist of the Bible. But the clerk thought he was named after a Zionist poet and they were anti-Soviet reactionaries.

Not having Soviet citizenship meant they had to move farther from the border. Since Uri is an artist, the book is full of illustrations and has large print, and we’re given a clear view of what it’s like to be a refugee when you’re too young to really comprehend what’s going on. They spent much of the war in Settlement Yura in the far north, and much of the war in Turkestan, far east of the border, and much of the war, wherever they were, hungry.

Although the book is long, with the large print and the abundant illustrations, it makes for quick reading. Since he was a child when the events took place, he has no trouble speaking on a child’s level and talking about things children are interested in.

He was eleven by the time the war was over and they got out of the Soviet Union. So this is also the story of growing up and the seeds that were planted that led to him becoming an artist.

urishulevitz.com
mackids.com

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*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books!

Review of Changing the Equation, by Tonya Bolden

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review 0

Changing the Equation

50+ US Black Women in STEM

by Tonya Bolden

Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2020. 202 pages.
Review written September 14, 2020, from a library book

I was a math major in college, and got a Master’s degree in Pure Mathematics shortly after getting my Bachelor’s degree. There were very few other women in my program (5 of us out of 120 new grad students at UCLA), and I don’t remember any African Americans, let alone African American women.

Young people dream about what they can imagine themselves doing. So I love that this book exists, kick starting dreams of young black girls by showing pictures and telling stories about black women engaged in careers and doing important work in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. These women have won significant awards and achievements.

Each of these women gets a short biography, photos, and an explanation of why their work is significant. Though the book does cover pioneers – beginning with Rebecca Davis Lee Crumpler, the first US black woman to earn a medical degree in 1864 – the majority of the women profiled are still working today.

There’s also a wide range of fields of work, so a young person may well find an example that inspires them, from doctors and nurses through yes, mathematicians, but also videogame designers, mechanics, pharmacists, chemical engineers, aerospace engineers, computer scientists, and so much more.

At the back of the book, we do learn that black women still only earn 1 percent of engineering degrees in America. But I love this response:

Dr. Crumpler, not one to despair, would no doubt respond to such stats by rallying twenty-first-century US black girls to get busy changing the equations.

tonyaboldenbooks.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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*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books!

Review of A Quantum Life, by Hakeem Oluseyi and Joshua Horwitz

Biography, Mathematical, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

A Quantum Life

(Adapted for Young Adults)

My Unlikely Journey from the Streets to the Stars

by Hakeem Oluseyi and Joshua Horwitz

Delacorte Press, 2023. 333 pages.
Review written January 14, 2024, from a library book
Starred Review
2024 Mathical Book Prize Winner, 9th-12th grades

I usually read nonfiction fairly slowly, a chapter at a time, interspersing with novels. I managed to start this book that way, but it didn’t last long. I took one break from it, but when I picked it up again, I couldn’t stop. The novels could wait.

This book tells the story of Hakeem Oluseyi, who began his life as James Plummer Jr., and who progressed to be a renowned astrophysicist. His road to get there was not easy. There were times reading this book when I was almost afraid to turn the page, and I’d have to remind myself that the book flap said he indeed became an astrophysicist.

Here’s how he describes his childhood in the Prologue:

As a bookish kid, I was an easy target in Watts, Houston’s Third Ward, and the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. My gangbanger older cousins taught me the rules of the street by the time I was six: who you could look at in the eyes and who you couldn’t, how to tell if the dude walking toward you was Crip or Blood, friend or foe. I developed a sixth sense, what I thought of as my “dark vision,” that let me see all the dirt in my hood: where a deal was going down and where the undercover heat was hiding. The scariest time was after sunset, when the predators came out in force.

I was intrigued by the wider universe, including the night sky. But I couldn’t see many stars from the streets where I grew up, what with the big-city lights and the smog. And for the sake of my own survival, I didn’t want to be caught staring off into space. Celestial navigation wasn’t going to help me find my way home without getting beat up or shaken down. By my early teens, I’d adopted a thug persona, walking and talking tough, carrying a gun for protection. But I never joined a gang, and no matter how hard I’d tried to straddle the gangsta-nerd divide, I was still mostly a science geek playacting a thug.

This was a Black kid with a very unstable housing situation growing up — changing schools frequently and not having reliable adults in his life. Yet this same kid taught himself quantum mechanics by reading the encyclopedia and had a prodigious memory and strong curiosity.

And here’s a spoiler that’s not really a spoiler: This kid from a drug-using family was the first in his family to graduate from high school and went on to get a PhD in Physics.

He had help along the way and got into some tight spots, but he did it. And that story is both riveting and inspiring.

I was happy to be part of the committee that gave the 2024 Mathical Book Prize for books for high school to this outstanding book.

GetUnderlined.com

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Review of Finding Home: Words from Kids Seeking Sanctuary, by Gwen Agna and Shelley Rotner, photographs by Shelley Rotner

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Finding Home

Words from Kids Seeking Sanctuary

by Gwen Agna and Shelley Rotner
photographs by Shelley Rotner

Clarion Books, 2024. 32 pages.
Review written January 29, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

Oh, this beautiful book! I’ve long been a fan of Shelley Rotner’s bright, beautiful photo illustrations focusing on children. In this one she shows us smiling faces of children from all over the world who are refugees. As a mom, the pictures of these sweet children wrenched my heart, but the book is completely kid-friendly, showing kids photos of other children who are just like them in important ways.

There’s simple text tying the pages together, and then most of the book is quotations from children, with speech bubbles coming from their photographs.

First, the book explains in simple language this concept:

Kids from all over the world have to leave their homes and countries.

They have to escape —
fleeing fires, floods, drought, or war —
because it’s not safe for them to stay anymore.

Many families leave hoping to find freedom,
a better life — a new home.

Quotations from kids, with photographs, illustrate each part. After the basic definition of refugees, it talks about the difficulty of moving. But the bulk of the book is positive things about their new lives. Here’s the text of that part without the quotations:

It takes a lot of courage —
you have to be brave to move somewhere new.

All kids need a safe place to learn . . .

… explore. . .

. . . play. . .

. . . celebrate good times together. . .

. . . and make new friends.

That section shows kids doing exactly those things.

Here are some of the quotations from kids:

We left in a hurry. We could hardly bring anything. I could only take what fit in my backpack.

I miss my home and I miss my comfortable bed, but I’m glad I’m not in a country that’s having a war.

It was hard to make friends at first when you speak a different language. I couldn’t understand them, and they couldn’t understand me.

My new school has art class. We didn’t have that in my country. I love to draw. This is my happy home.

There are more details of some of the children’s stories at the back, a glossary, and author’s notes. This will help give kids empathy for other kids in the world, who may show up in their own classrooms.

shelleyrotner.com
harpercollinschildrens.com

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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 Rough Sleepers, by Tracy Kidder

Audiobooks, Biography, Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, True Stories 0

Rough Sleepers

Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People

by Tracy Kidder
read by the Author

Books on Tape, 2023. 8 hours, 42 minutes.
Review written January 3, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2023 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #6 More Nonfiction

I’ve read a few of Tracy Kidder’s in-depth biographies now: Among Schoolchildren, Strength in What Remains, and Mountains Beyond Mountains. Like those amazing books, this one takes a deep dive into a man who has given his life to helping people who need it.

In this case, we’re looking at Dr. Jim O’Connell, who got drafted into a program of providing medical care for the homeless in Boston after he’d finished his internship. His plan was to simply help out for a year, but the people there and the need pulled him in, and his work has gone on for decades.

Tracy Kidder traveled along with Dr. O’Connell and gives a picture of the day-to-day and night-to-night work he and his organization do. They’ve got a van that goes out to rough sleepers, bringing blankets and cocoa. They’ve got a home where people can go when they’re discharged from the hospital but not yet able to care for themselves. Most of all, the homeless people of Boston have doctors looking out for them, caring for them. I’m honestly a little envious – but at the same time glad that this vulnerable population has people in their corner.

And the portrayal of Jim O’Connell makes him shine like Mr. Rogers — someone who sees people, who cares about his patients. He sees them as wonderful people, looking far beyond their difficult circumstances.

The book doesn’t sugarcoat the situation. Many of their patients die, and sleeping rough is still associated with shorter lives. Even efforts to get them housing doesn’t always work because the patients don’t necessarily know how to conduct themselves in that situation. We also get stories of some of the striking characters, with all their complexity, whose lives have been touched by Dr. O’Connell’s work and whose lives in turn touched others.

This doctor shines because he sees the beauty and wonder in vulnerable people and cares for them. This book shines because it helps the reader see that, too.

tracykidder.com

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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 Mexikid, by Pedro Martín

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

Mexikid

A Graphic Memoir

by Pedro Martín

Dial Books for Young Readers, 2023. 316 pages.
Review written January 3, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review
2024 Newbery Honor Book
2024 Pura Belpré Award Winner for Illustrator and Author
2024 Odyssey Award Honor Audiobook
2023 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #8 Children’s Nonfiction

It’s no secret that I think graphic novel memoirs celebrating middle school years are the best thing ever. In this one, the author looks to be a little younger than middle school, and he and his family went on an amazing adventure. Pedro’s the 7th of 9 children, and his whole family hit the road in a Winnebago in 1977 and drove to Mexico to pick up his Abuelito and bring him back to California. Hijinks ensue.

Honestly, I can’t do justice to all that’s in here. Pedro loves to draw, and imagines his Abuelito as a superhero, based on the stories of his time during the Mexican Revolution. But then when he sees Abuelito, he does some feats of amazing strength.

Seriously, if you don’t think traveling in a Winnebago with a whole bunch of kids has all kinds of funny things to write about, you’ve never done it. Hmm. My family did that a few years before Pedro’s family, when there were probably 8 kids. But we didn’t have to deal with crossing a border and getting toys confiscated and nothing to listen to except “Shipoopi.”

You’re going to have to trust me that this book is hilarious and fun and full of adventure, because I don’t even know how to start describing details. It’s also about family – siblings and cousins, parents and grandparents, and a classic road trip bringing them all together.

mexikid.com
Penguin.com/kids

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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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