A valuable addition to the stories of life in Jim Crow America.
One of the Little Rock Nine describes her childhood in the years leading up to the 1957 event.
Beals’ moving adult memoir, Warriors Don’t Cry (1994), painted a harrowing portrait of her experience as one of the African-American students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Here she shares her memories of growing up in the segregated South and what led her to challenge Jim Crow laws. She describes a warm, loving family environment where church and education were highly valued. These positives are not always enough to outweigh the darkness she feels from witnessing and experiencing racism from whites in stores or even those doing business in and around her home. There are episodes involving the Ku Klux Klan and even the lynching of a family acquaintance, experiences that leave Beals with a desire for justice and an abhorrence of the treatment of blacks at the hands of whites. When she is among those chosen to integrate Central High School, the determination she needs has been building for years. This narrative is told in a conversational tone, full of personal stories and remembrances. Beals pinpoints clearly the injustices and pain of her early years and shows how they prepared her for the challenges of making history, intertwining these stories with more personal coming-of-age recollections. Archival photographs and Morrison’s drawings punctuate the pages. (Final art not seen.)
A valuable addition to the stories of life in Jim Crow America. (Memoir. 10-16)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-328-88212-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats.
Why should grown-ups get all the historical, scientific, athletic, cinematic, and artistic glory?
Choosing exemplars from both past and present, Mitchell includes but goes well beyond Alexander the Great, Anne Frank, and like usual suspects to introduce a host of lesser-known luminaries. These include Shapur II, who was formally crowned king of Persia before he was born, Indian dancer/professional architect Sheila Sri Prakash, transgender spokesperson Jazz Jennings, inventor Param Jaggi, and an international host of other teen or preteen activists and prodigies. The individual portraits range from one paragraph to several pages in length, and they are interspersed with group tributes to, for instance, the Nazi-resisting “Swingkinder,” the striking New York City newsboys, and the marchers of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade. Mitchell even offers would-be villains a role model in Elagabalus, “boy emperor of Rome,” though she notes that he, at least, came to an awful end: “Then, then! They dumped his remains in the Tiber River, to be nommed by fish for all eternity.” The entries are arranged in no evident order, and though the backmatter includes multiple booklists, a personality quiz, a glossary, and even a quick Braille primer (with Braille jokes to decode), there is no index. Still, for readers whose fires need lighting, there’s motivational kindling on nearly every page.
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats. (finished illustrations not seen) (Collective biography. 10-13)Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-751813-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Puffin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
A tragic, gripping, and inspiring story.
In 1979, 11-year-old Norman was the only survivor of a plane crash in Southern California: This is his true story.
This book for middle-grade readers, co-authored with Kiely, covers much of the same material as Ollestad’s 2009 memoir for adults, Crazy for the Storm. Flying in a four-seater Cessna with his father, his father’s girlfriend, Sandra, and the pilot, Norman was excited to reach Big Bear to receive his ski-racing trophy. (As a vivid example of his busy childhood, they’d driven the 300 miles there yesterday for Norman to compete—and then driven back to Topanga Canyon in the evening for his hockey game.) But the plane tragically crashed on a mountain in a blizzard. Nothing is sugarcoated; readers encounter graphic descriptions of the pilot and Norman’s dad, who died, and Sandra, who suffered a gaping head wound. Eventually accepting that he had to figure things out on his own, Norman drew upon the extreme training his father had put his “Boy Wonder” through—training that had bullied Norman into facing difficult physical and mental challenges that he feared and resented. During his trek to safety, Norman performed incredible mental and physical feats and encouraged the barely functioning Sandra—until she fell to her death. Norman’s conflicted feelings about the father he’d both idolized and resented are nuanced and satisfyingly resolved. Readers who enjoy nail-biting wilderness stories will be riveted.
A tragic, gripping, and inspiring story. (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780374392611
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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