A spirited account of a life devoted to service.
A civil rights activist began her quest for justice as a child.
Growing up in segregated South Carolina, Marian Wright Edelman was admonished for drinking from a fountain meant for white people—an experience that left its mark on the then-4-year-old. Her hero, the abolitionist Sojourner Truth, once responded to a white man’s dismissive remarks (“Why I don’t care any more for your talk than I do for the bite of a flea”) with an equally determined retort (“Perhaps not, but Lord willing, I’ll keep you scratching”). Calling herself a “flea for justice,” Marian fought injustice any way she could: As a child, she switched the signs on segregated water fountains, and while in college, she participated in protests at restaurants that refused to serve African Americans. As the first Black female lawyer in Mississippi, she defended activists arrested for helping African Americans register to vote. She marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and, after he was killed, channeled her efforts into young people’s education, establishing the Children’s Defense Fund and Freedom Schools. Bolling writes in a lively, even playful tone, frequently posing questions to her young audience, returning often to the flea metaphor, and leaving readers with a final challenge: “What will you do to make someone scratch?” Close-ups of faces—Marian’s, Sojourner Truth’s, and King’s, as well as those of the students whom Marian touched—dominate Grooms’ vivid digital art.
A spirited account of a life devoted to service. (timeline, additional information, author’s note, additional reading, source notes, bibliography) (Picture-book biography. 6-9)Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781623545826
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: today
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era.
The New Orleans school child who famously broke the color line in 1960 while surrounded by federal marshals describes the early days of her experience from a 6-year-old’s perspective.
Bridges told her tale to younger children in 2009’s Ruby Bridges Goes to School, but here the sensibility is more personal, and the sometimes-shocking historical photos have been replaced by uplifting painted scenes. “I didn’t find out what being ‘the first’ really meant until the day I arrived at this new school,” she writes. Unfrightened by the crowd of “screaming white people” that greets her at the school’s door (she thinks it’s like Mardi Gras) but surprised to find herself the only child in her classroom, and even the entire building, she gradually realizes the significance of her act as (in Smith’s illustration) she compares a small personal photo to the all-White class photos posted on a bulletin board and sees the difference. As she reflects on her new understanding, symbolic scenes first depict other dark-skinned children marching into classes in her wake to friendly greetings from lighter-skinned classmates (“School is just school,” she sensibly concludes, “and kids are just kids”) and finally an image of the bright-eyed icon posed next to a soaring bridge of reconciliation. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A unique angle on a watershed moment in the civil rights era. (author and illustrator notes, glossary) (Autobiographical picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-75388-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Orchard/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
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