A beautiful example of what a picture book can be.
How did a book-loving girl grow up to be a Supreme Court justice?
“Ladies and gentleman of the jury,” the story opens, as a young white girl faces an audience to present evidence on how Ruth Bader Ginsburg experienced an “unfair world” of prejudice against Jews and females. Winter traces Ginsburg’s life from birth in Brooklyn in 1933 to college at Cornell and law school at Harvard and Columbia and, ultimately, to the United States Supreme Court, the second woman ever to be appointed. Each step of the way, she faced sexism and exclusion, effectively addressed as courtroom evidence. In exhibit A, she’s demoted and forced to take a pay cut in her first job out of college (before law school) due to pregnancy. Exhibit B presents the fact that Harvard Law School had no housing for women since there were only nine of them, and in exhibit C, women couldn’t enter the periodicals room—critical for completing coursework. The text, informative without overwhelming, is extended by an author’s note describing some of Ginsburg’s actual court cases (including her opposition to the Citizen’s United decision). Innerst’s stunning gouache, ink, and Photoshop illustrations employ an R. Gregory Christie–style of abstraction, from the dust-jacket portrait and the case cover’s clever depiction of Ginsburg and the scales of justice to the endpapers full of books, books, books. From cover to cover, a lovingly made volume that succeeds on every level.
A beautiful example of what a picture book can be. (glossary) (Picture book/biography. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2559-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2017
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share.
A multiaward–winning author recalls her childhood and the joy of becoming a writer.
Writing in free verse, Woodson starts with her 1963 birth in Ohio during the civil rights movement, when America is “a country caught / / between Black and White.” But while evoking names such as Malcolm, Martin, James, Rosa and Ruby, her story is also one of family: her father’s people in Ohio and her mother’s people in South Carolina. Moving south to live with her maternal grandmother, she is in a world of sweet peas and collards, getting her hair straightened and avoiding segregated stores with her grandmother. As the writer inside slowly grows, she listens to family stories and fills her days and evenings as a Jehovah’s Witness, activities that continue after a move to Brooklyn to reunite with her mother. The gift of a composition notebook, the experience of reading John Steptoe’s Stevieand Langston Hughes’ poetry, and seeing letters turn into words and words into thoughts all reinforce her conviction that “[W]ords are my brilliance.” Woodson cherishes her memories and shares them with a graceful lyricism; her lovingly wrought vignettes of country and city streets will linger long after the page is turned.
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share. (Memoir/poetry. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-25251-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
Though a bit loose around the edges, a charmer nevertheless.
Tales of a fourth grade ne’er-do-well.
It seems that young Jordan is stuck in a never-ending string of bad luck. Sure, no one’s perfect (except maybe goody-two-shoes William Feranek), but Jordan can’t seem to keep his attention focused on the task at hand. Try as he may, things always go a bit sideways, much to his educators’ chagrin. But Jordan promises himself that fourth grade will be different. As the year unfolds, it does prove to be different, but in a way Jordan couldn’t possibly have predicted. This humorous memoir perfectly captures the square-peg-in-a-round-hole feeling many kids feel and effectively heightens that feeling with comic situations and a splendid villain. Jordan’s teacher, Mrs. Fisher, makes an excellent foil, and the book’s 1970s setting allows for her cruelty to go beyond anything most contemporary readers could expect. Unfortunately, the story begins to run out of steam once Mrs. Fisher exits. Recollections spiral, losing their focus and leading to a more “then this happened” and less cause-and-effect structure. The anecdotes are all amusing and Jordan is an endearing protagonist, but the book comes dangerously close to wearing out its welcome with sheer repetitiveness. Thankfully, it ends on a high note, one pleasant and hopeful enough that readers will overlook some of the shabbier qualities. Jordan is White and Jewish while there is some diversity among his classmates; Mrs. Fisher is White.
Though a bit loose around the edges, a charmer nevertheless. (Memoir. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-64723-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
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