Category: Children’s Nonfiction Review

Heart and Soul

The Story of America and African Americans

by Kadir Nelson

Balzer & Bray, 2011. 108 pages.
2012 Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner
2012 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book
2012 Battle of the Kids’ Books Contender
Starred Review

Kadir Nelson’s paintings, as usual, are stunningly beautiful in this book. His use of light makes the people seem warm and alive.

In this book, he takes the voice of an old woman whose family has been in America from the start. She talks about the slaves who fought in the Revolutionary War. Then she talks about her grandfather, Pap, who was born in Africa, captured in 1850 when he was only six years old, and brought to America. She traces all the changes Pap saw — The Civil War, Reconstruction, moving West, the Great Migration, and through the Depression and the Second World War. She talks about the Civil Rights Movement as she saw it herself, and finishes up with an Epilogue that includes these paragraphs:

“Forty-five years after Dr. King spoke on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, I marched my old legs to the polls along with millions of other Americans to vote in an historic election. It was the first time that an African American — Barack Obama — had won the Democratic nomination and appeared on the national ballot for president of the United States. As I cast my vote, I thought about my grandfather Pap, who didn’t live to see this moment, and my three children and two brothers, who did; I thought about my mother and father, and my aunts and uncles; I thought about Abe Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman; I thought about presidents Kennedy and Johnson, Dr. King, Thurgood Marshall, the Freedom Riders, the marchers, and all the people who lived and died so that I might walk into this booth and cast my vote. I thought about them all and smiled; and as I walked away, I closed my eyes and said, ‘Thank you.’

“Our centuries-long struggle for freedom and equal rights had helped make the American promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness a reality for all Americans. We have come a mighty long way, honey, and we still have a good ways to go, but that promise and the right to fight for it is worth every ounce of its weight in gold. It is our nation’s heart and soul.”

The words alone of this book make a grand, sweeping story of African-American contributions to American life, but combined with the paintings, this book has majesty.

Kadir Nelson’s art continues to be breathtaking. He shows you the dignity and beauty of his subjects.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/heart_and_soul.html

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 the Fairfax County Public Library.

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Bootleg

Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition

by Karen Blumenthal

Roaring Brook Press, New York, 2011. 154 pages.
Starred Review
2012 YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Finalist

Before I read this book, I thought I knew about Prohibition. This book opened my eyes to how much I didn’t know. While keeping the story moving, the author shows us all the things that led up to Prohibition, how it worked out and didn’t work out, and what led to its repeal. She also talks about after effects.

I had no idea how, when our country was founded, rum was even used to pay wages. Even the Puritans were fond of it! (Who would have thought?) The Continental Army got a daily ration of hard liquor.

“In the years between 1800 and 1830, Americans drank more hard liquor than at any other time in their history, each imbibing on average roughly nine gallons a year, or about four gallons of pure alcohol, about twice the level of the previous generation. Beer and wine still had a place at the table, but less so than before.

“With more hard drink available, the number of taverns and tippling houses multiplied, as did seedier dramshops and gin houses. Not surprising given the amounts ingested, drunkenness also increased and with it, hardships for families affected by a father’s drinking.”

So in the 1830s, the temperance movement began to grow. She writes about Carrie Nation, who attacked saloons with an ax. There is a picture of a boy carrying a beer pail home and another of several young children sitting on barrels, drinking and smoking. I understand better now why the prohibitionists got so worked up.

Karen Blumenthal also explains the political situation that made those against Prohibition think the amendment would never get ratified — so they didn’t put nearly the energy into the campaign that the Prohibitionists did.

But then, after Prohibition passed, she outlines all the ways people got around the law, even as high up as the White House. She talks about law enforcement efforts and non-efforts, and tells the story of Al Capone.

Particularly interesting is her final chapter, “Success or Failure?” She shows us that this is a complex question.

“The men who helped launch the prohibition era and the one who filled it with machine-gun fire left a complex legacy. On the surface, an amendment that was passed and then repealed must have been a colossal failure, an embarrassing splotch in America’s history.

“But prohibition, short-lived though it was, was actually successful in some significant ways. The number of arrests for drunkenness and alcohol-related diseases, like cirrhosis of the liver, fell dramatically. The total consumption of alcohol slid to the lowest level in the nation’s history, especially during World War I and the first few years under the Eighteenth Amendment. Although drinking crept back up in the later 1920s and early 1930s, the amount of alcohol consumed per person each year actually remained fairly low for decades, and didn’t return to pre-prohibition levels until the 1970s, more than fifty years after prohibition took effect.

“In the course of nearly fourteen years of actual prohibition, aided by technology and other developments, Americans became more educated, more urban, and enjoyed far more entertainment. Radios and radio programs became widely available, and almost half the nation became avid listeners. Movie theater attendance doubled after films began to talk in 1926. With one car for every five people, more families headed for national forests and parks. The number of golf courses increased sevenfold. Saloons, the dirty and dangerous blight on the urban landscape, all but disappeared. Even young people had better things to do than hang out in a bar. . . .

“Where prohibition failed most, perhaps, was on a more personal level. Alcoholism and alcohol abuse remain significant social problems, affecting more than 17 million American adults and their families. Today’s problem of persistent homelessness, often linked to substance abuse and mental illnesses, has the same roots as the problem of drunkenness in the nineteenth century. Parents still worry about protecting their children, especially when government statistics show that an estimated 5,000 young people under the age of twenty-one die each year from alcohol-related car crashes or injuries.”

Her final summing up says it well:

“Today, each of us is accountable for our own behavior, and adult drinking is a matter of choice and personal responsibility. The days of outright prohibition are gone and likely will never return. But the powerful experience of prohibition continues to color our laws, our debates, and our personal lives. And the problems that brought us the Eighteenth Amendment — the pain that substance abuse inflicts on families, the devastation of alcoholism, and the impact of drinking on young people — remain a challenge to current and future generations.”

So in this book you’ve got an even-handed look at Prohibition that also manages to be gripping and fascinating. It’s written for children and young adults, but I think most adults will also find themselves learning a lot from this book.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/bootleg.html

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 book I received at the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Awards Reception and had signed by the author.

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