Review of Bird Girl, written by Jill Esbaum, illustrated by Rebecca Gibbon

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Bird Girl

Gene Stratton-Porter Shares Her Love of Nature with the World

written by Jill Esbaum
illustrated by Rebecca Gibbon

Calkins Creek, 2024. 44 pages.
Review written April 30, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

Bird Girl is a picture book biography of Gene Stratton-Porter. Many years ago, I read A Girl of the Limberlost, and I expected the story of her life as an author. Instead, the book told about her fascination with studying and caring for birds and her groundbreaking work as a nature photographer who photographed birds in their natural settings.

And then I remembered that I learned from her novels how important it is for farmers to leave trees on the edges of their fields – because then birds will help them eliminate pests. And that was only a bit of the nature lore in her novels.

The book is bright and colorful and uses entertaining anecdotes to tell the story. When she was a girl, she hid a hawk’s droppings from her farmer father so he wouldn’t know where the nest was and kill it. Later, when he did shoot down a hawk, she took care of it and befriended it until its wing healed.

As an adult, Gene Stratton-Porter had a house with a conservatory that had windows with special hatches so birds could come and go, and she kept food for birds throughout her house.

She began photographing birds because the illustrations a magazine wanted to use for her stories were drawings of stuffed birds in unnatural positions. She learned to photograph and develop her own film – and then she went out into the nearby Limberlost swamp to take the pictures.

She fights through spongy muck and tangled undergrowth – rattlesnake territory – to reach the hollow tree where a vulture nests. She goes back time and again to capture the world’s first photo series of a growing vulture chick.

She ended up with a vast knowledge of wildlife acquired through patient observation that began when she was a child. And her story shows kids the power of a quirky obsession.

jillesbaum.com
rebeccagibbon.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 Unstoppable Garrett Morgan, by Joan DiCicco, illustrated by Ebony Glenn

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review 0

The Unstoppable Garrett Morgan

Inventor, Entrepreneur, Hero

by Joan DiCicco
illustrated by Ebony Glenn

Lee & Low Books, 2019. 40 pages.
Review written April 22, 2020, from a library book

Here’s another fascinating picture book biography about an amazing person I knew nothing about.

Garrett Morgan was an African American inventor and born in 1877. He grew up on a farm in the South and moved to Cincinnati to find opportunities. He worked as a janitor, but was good at fixing equipment and was promoted to machinist for a clothing manufacturer.

When he wanted to marry a white seamstress from Germany, he quit his job and opened his own sewing machine repair shop. Together with his wife, they expanded their business to a company making affordable clothing.

But where Garrett Morgan really made a name for himself was designing and manufacturing “Safety Hoods” for firefighters to wear. It would bring fresher air up from ground level to keep the wearer from smoke inhalation. Where he gained the reputation of a hero was when he wore one of his own Safety Hoods to rescue people from a tunnel explosion.

And he continued to keep people safe, as later in his life he invented a system of traffic signals.

His story is told as someone who wasn’t stopped by obstacles.

With determination and courage, Garrett Morgan went around, over, and through every obstacle between him and his goal to help others. Today his legacy is all around us. Whenever firefighters rescue people from smoke-filled buildings or motorists and pedestrians safely cross an intersection, we have a brave inventor to thank: Garrett Morgan.

joandiciccowriter.com
ebonyglenn.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 World of Glass, by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review 0

World of Glass

The Art of Dale Chihuly

by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan

Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2020. 60 pages.
Review written July 13, 2020, from a library book

World of Glass is a biography of artist Dale Chihuly, who works in glass. It’s longer than a picture book biography, but has large square pages that fit large photographs of the artist’s work on almost every page, making the book suitable for upper elementary through middle school.

I was interested in this artist because on the afternoon after the 2019 Newbery committee had made our choice and delivered our press release to the ALA office, but hadn’t announced our choice to the world yet, I was left to my own devices in Seattle. I rode the monorail to the Space Needle, as I could vaguely remember doing as a little girl. But at the grounds of the Space Needle, unlike when I was a little girl, I found the Chihuly Garden and Glass, where the glass sculptures of Dale Chihuly are featured. I spent a couple of hours browsing and was enchanted.

This book filled in details for me of the artist’s work. Even reading it more than a year after I saw the gallery, I now understand better what was being accomplished with the various forms made in glass. The book explains how he got his start and tells about various series of art pieces he has made.

Until I saw that museum, when I thought of an artist, I would never have thought of glass blowing. This book may expand kids’ ideas about art as well.

Dale has said that in order to get better at glassblowing, an aspiring artist must do it over and over again. “You’re making something that’s never been made before. It’s an ancient craft that someone invented two thousand years ago. Can you imagine blowing human breath down a blowpipe and getting a bubble and then heating it up in fire, using a couple of little tools and then making forms you can’t touch? All you have to do is blow glass once and you want to become a glassblower.

JanGreenburgSandraJordan.com
abramsyoungreaders.com

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Source: This review is based on a 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 Dissenter on the Bench, by Victoria Ortiz

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review 0

Dissenter on the Bench

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Life and Work

by Victoria Ortiz

Clarion Books (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), 2019. 199 pages.
Review written June 3, 2020, from a library book
2020 Sidney Taylor Book Award Young Adult Honor

This book is a biography of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg written for kids approximately ages 10 to 14.

Each chapter begins with an important case that Justice Ginsburg ruled on, either with the majority, or writing the dissent. I like the way this book was presented for kids by using cases that affected kids at the start of the book.

The first story told in the first chapter is about Savana Lee Redding, who was subjected to a strip search for drugs at her school when she was thirteen years old. When her case went before the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the only woman on the bench. The chapter ends by talking about Savana winning her case.

We can safely assume that when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg strongly urged her male colleagues to step out of their shoes and into Savana’s she tapped in to both her own experiences as a young girl and her long-held beliefs about justice and fairness. About her fellow justices, she said straightforwardly: “They have never been a thirteen-year-old girl. I don’t think my colleagues, some of them, quite understand.” Fortunately for Savana and for all schoolchildren from then on, Justice Ginsburg had persuaded all but one of the other justices to decide the case in Savana’s favor.

In the middle of the chapter, the book tells about Ruth Bader as a small child. And that’s how the book continues, telling about Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life, but framed by cases she later heard. We do see from that a very clear trend that there should be equity for all. She worked for the ACLU for many years, and took cases of gender discrimination not only for women but also for men who weren’t treated fairly (such as a man not getting social security benefits after his wife died that she would have gotten if it had been the other way around).

At times, that did make the timeline of her life a little bit confusing, since they were skipping ahead in her life with the cases. There was a little bit of repetition in all that skipping, too. But overall it’s a nice solid portrayal of an important figure who has spent her life speaking out against unfairness. And the kid-friendly cases presented will catch kids’ interest and get them thinking about what rights they do have in America under the Constitution.

hmhbooks.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 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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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 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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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 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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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

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.

What did you think of this book?

*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!