Sonny Rollins Plays the Bridge by Gary Golio, illustrated by James Ransome

 

Sonny Rollins Plays the Bridge 

written by Gary Golio, illustrated by James Ransome

Nancy Paulsen Books. 2021, 32 pages

Imagine being a jazz musician and not being about to practice playing your saxophone every day in your own apartment because the beautiful sounds you make disturbs your neighbors.

Well, that was exactly the situation Sonny Rollins found himself in. So, Sonny leaves his house, taking his saxophone with him, and walking down Delancey Street, he heads straight  to a place where he knows he can play to his heart's content, and as loudly as he wants/needs to. Sonny continues walking until he reaches the Bridge, taking the walkway to the highest point of this long suspension bridge, he pulls out his sax and begins to play.  But "is that a/ strange/ place/ to play his/ horn?" No, not when you need to do it, not when you are compelled to play. 

There, standing mid-Bridge, Sonny can practice playing his saxophone as loudly as he wants against the background noise of the city, the busy East River below, including squawking seagulls, the passing subway trains, and all the car traffic by his side. It is the perfect spot for this talented jazzman to freely hone his skills without disturbing anyone.

You're probably thought that Sonny found what he needed on the iconic Brooklyn Bridge, but no, indeed. At the end of Delancey Street, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan where he lived is the Williamsburg Bridge and that Bridge and this Musician were perfect together.

Gary Golio is a picture book biography Meister with an already impressive oeuvre, and now, with the inspirational Sonny Rollins Plays the Bridge, he has once again proven this to be true. His poetic text reads like a jazz performance, by which I mean that instead of classical poetic forms, readers can feel the rhythmic beat and syncopation. It almost makes you want to snap your fingers as you read because of its musicality that capture's all of Rollins' moods and emotions throughout. 

Harmonizing with Golio's jazzy text are James Ransome's equally jazzy watercolor and collage illustrations. The illustrations range from detailed full color two page spreads to simple spot images, catching the busy streets of the Lower East Side as Sonny walks to the Bridge. I particularly liked the way Ransome represented the music from Sonny's horn - as various shapes of golden notes.

I love picture book biographies. They can be so inspiring and they are a wonderful way to introduce young readers to people and their achievements they might not otherwise learn about. And often, their stories show readers that problems and obstacles are solvable - and Sonny Rollins' is a prime example of that.

Back matter includes information about Sonny Rollins as well as the Williamsburg Bridge and Sonny's Words about how this book came to be.

FYI: In 1962, Sonny Rollins recorded an album simply called The Bridge. It was his first album after taking a 3 year hiatus from music during which time he practiced his saxophone on the Williamsburg Bridge. 

This book is recommended for readers age 6+

This book was gratefully received from the author.

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

To be honest, the two most exciting things about BEA 2014 for me was meeting Jacqueline Woodson and Andrea Davis Pinkney and it a typical twist of fate, both authors were doing book signing at the same time.  What to do?  Get to the first signing early, even skipping two signings (one was favorite actor Alan Cumming) I would have liked to go to, then whip over to the second signing before it ended.  So I went home that day with two cherished ARCs - Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacueline Woodson and The Red Pencil by Andrea Davis Pinkney.

So, now I have finished reading Brown Girl Dreaming.  Was worth all that crowd-pushing, line-standing, time-finagling?  YES, YES AND YES.

Written in free verse, Woodson shares the people and events in her childhood during the 1960s and 1970s which helped to shape her as a person and as a writer.  Beginning with her birth in Ohio, where her father's family, the Woodsons, lived, she was the youngest of three children, a sister and brother.  Jacqueline, named for her father Jack,  was still young when her mother left her father, and returned to her home and family South Carolina.  Leaving the children with her parents, she went off to New York to try to establish herself and bring her children up there.

In the south, Jackie, her sister Dell and brother Hope experience the best of family and friends.  The children became Jehovah's Witnesses like their grandmother, but, for Jackie, it was her grandfather Gunnar Irby who was her favorite.  But in the south, she also experiences signs that say "Whites Only" and even after things changed, her grandmother refuses to sit in the front of the bus, but also refuses to shop in stores where people made her wait and wait to be helped.

Later, her mother came to get her three children to bring them to their new home to Brooklyn and to meet their new baby brother, Roman.  Living in Bushwick, attending PS 106, the teachers immediately  recognize that Dell is gifted, Hope loves science, Woodson writes her name on the board as Jackie, avoiding the q that gave her trouble.  And she finds a best friend Maria, whose mother makes the best chicken and rice.  Brooklyn in this time frame is so familiar to me, that reading most of this memoir is like going home.  I laughed out loud when I got to the poem called "John's Bargain Store."  Woodson and her friend bought 3 t-shirts, blue, yellow and pink, to dress alike (My best friend and I bought .29 cent silver friendship rings at John's Bargain Store on Flatbush Avenue, and I still have mine).

Woodson doesn't skirt issues that others might want to avoid.  She grew up in pivotal times for the country, and in places where she experienced change first hand, but also the kind of passive-aggressive racism that exists even today.   But she also writes about more personal issues - her beloved Uncle Robert, his arrest and visiting him in an upstate prison; baby brother Roman's addiction to eating lead based paint and his hospitalization, the painful death of her grandfather - it's all there.

And slowly, through it all, we see the writer Jacqueling Woodson develop, beginning with a love of words and what they could do, hinting at the person she will and has become.

When I finished reading Brown Girl Dreaming, I thought about it for a few minutes, turned to the front of the book and began reading it again.  The images that each of the poems conjure up are at times beautiful, sad, funny, poignant and at time difficult and honest, but all are beautifully rendered.  In the hands of a great wordsmith like Woodson, the sparseness of free verse can create an image that this so full-bodied, in part because it allows you to carry your own experienced/memories to what you are reading and become a part of the poem.

Brown Girl Dreaming is a book not to be missed.  A good companion to it would be Rita Williams-Garcia's books One Crazy Summer and P.S. Be Eleven, which both take place in late 1960s and 1970s.

Brown Girl Dreaming will be available on August 28, 2013, exactly 51 years years after Martin Luther King, Jr gave his "I Have A Dream" speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom…something to really think about.

This book is recommended for readers age 10+
This book was an E-ARC

Planet Middle School by Nikki Grimes

For Joylin Johnson, 12, there is nothing better than a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, a game of one on one with Jake, or hanging out with her best friend KeeLee.  It all adds up to a good day for her.  Or at least it used to until middle school came along and everything changed.

Joylin is changing - she's growing up and not happy about the changes,  inside or outside her body.  But she continues to play basketball, making the team at school and garnering all of her basketball loving father's praise.  The problem is that leaves no praise left over for little brother Caden, a talented artist in his own right, who keeps trying to get his father's attention and a little praise for himself.

Then, one Saturday, Joylin heads over to join the boys only basketball game.  When Joylin gets the ball, she suddenly realizes the guard on the other team who's shadowing her has killer green eyes.  She loses the ball and has a fight with Jake, but finds out the boy's name is Santiago.

Suddenly, Joylin is smitten and to attract Santiago's attention, she changes herself to get him to notice her.  But heels and makeup just aren't her style and besides, Santiago still doesn't notice her.  Naturally, Jake and KeeLee are quick to point out that she really just needs to be herself.

But it takes a man texting in his car to make Joylin finally stop and reassess what are the most important things in her life.

When my Kiddo was around Joylin's age, she said to me one day "Wouldn't you love to be my age again?  It's the best!"  My answer was a flat out and resounding NO!  Once was enough.  And as the realities of tween life began to make themselves felt, she told me she could totally understand why I said no.

I had forgotten about his conversation until I started reading Nikki Grimes's Planet Middle School.  Grimes has managed to capture exactly what the transition from child to adolescent is like in this short, free verse volume.  It's all there - from changing hormones to clothes to zits to confusing feelings about boys, friends and life in general.

Joylin is the first person narrator and that  combined with the free verse style results in a feeling of stream of consciousness that gives this story a sense of intimacy and immediacy.  And Joylin is a great narrator - she's sassy, at times sarcastic, but she can also be kind and understanding, especially when it comes to her little brother.

This is an ideal book for anyone girl who has reached middle school age and who may be having some feelings of trepidation and anxiety about the changes she is facing or already experiencing.  It's always comforting to know that experiences like Joylin's happens to all girls.  I wish I had it to give to my Kiddo when she was 12.

One of the things I really loved about Planet Middle School is that the protagonist is African American but it is not about being African American per se, it is about being a girl entering a new phase of her life and that makes the story really universal.

Planet Middle School is, on the whole. a wonderful, very readable story about family friendship and growing up.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was purchased for my personal library

Gone Fishing: A Novel in Verse by Tamera Will Wissinger, illustrated by Matthew Cordell

Let's face it, Poetry isn't really a favorite of kids, nor is it something they get much of in school.  I am afraid I am even guilty of it myself.  I have reviewed at least 5 books on this blog and never added a poetry label, and only mentioned they were written in free verse (I will be correcting this oversight today!)  Yet, hey are all excellent novels that can be used to introduce kids to poetry.  And then there is the very amusing novel by Greg Pincus, The 14 Fibs of Gregory K, which has a boy protagonist who likes to write poetry, much like the author does.

Gone Fishing, Tamera Will Wissinger debut book, is a new work that can be added to the list of novels written in verse.  Sam, 9, is beyond excited because he and his dad are going to go fishing together, just the two of them, without Sam's little sister, Lucy.

To get ready, they dig up some night crawlers for bait, but when Sam pulls out his tackle, what a surprise - it is full of Lucy's toys. And he finds her playing pretend fishing with his precious fishing gear.

By early next morning, though, Sam is all set and up before the sun, but so is Lucy.  They get to the lake, get the boat in the water and Sam is ready for some serious fishing.  So is Lucy.  Sam likes it quiet so the fish don't get scared away, Lucy likes to lure the fish with a song and the first fish of the day is caught by….Lucy.

Sam is seething mad, Lucy is singing and fishing.  Sam. even tries Lucy's fish songs under his breath to lure a catch, but not luck.  He just sinks lower into his anger and annoyance, begrudging Lucy each fish that she catches even as his sibling rivalry rises to the top.  Sam is determined to catch a bigger fish.  The first big one gets away, but not the second.  Sam is proud, but to his surprise so is Lucy, who cheers for him:

"You caught one, Sam!"
Lucy scoots close to me.
"A big one, too!"
I nod, gulp.
I didn't even look
when she caught
her first fish.
But she
cheered for me.
Maybe I was wrong
about bringing her along.

Gone Fishing is really about coming to terms with sibling rivalry, something all brothers and sisters eventually (hopefully) go through, learning to accept the other as a person not a competitor, annoyance, things like that.  And it is charming to see how that begins to work out for Sam and Lucy.

Adding to the fun of the poetry are the colorful, whimsical illustrations done in pen, ink and watercolor by Matthew Cordell.

But wait, that's not all there is to Gone Fishing.

Each part of Sam's fishing day is told in its own poem.  Some of the poems are in Sam's voice, some in Lucy's and some in the Dad's, and sometimes a poems has all three voices in it.  Each poem is short, have much to say and are done in different poetic forms - odes, free verse, lyric, Lucy's fish song is a poem of address, to name a few.

At the end of the book, Wissinger has included a section called The Poet's Tackle Box.  Here, she explains the different poetry techniques used, all the different poetic forms she used and they difference between rhyme and rhythm.  It is an ideal book for introducing poetry in to young students, all the more so because the poems in Gone Fishing are about kids just like them and they could even make up their own similar poems.

Even if you aren't interested in poetry, you will have lots of fun reading Gone Fishing, a fun, playful novel in verse.

This book is recommended for readers age 6+
This book was borrowed from the NYPL

Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker by Patricia Hruby Powell, illustrated by Christian Robinson

The life of Josephine Baker was quite notorious and not what I would have thought to be the stuff of a children's biography, but Patricia Hruby Powell has written one the suits both.   Josephine Baker was an extraordinary African American woman.  The eldest of four child, born into poverty in St. Louis, Missouri in 1906, Josephine spent much of her life caring for her siblings and helping her grandmother and  mother wash other people's laundry.  

But St. Louis was also the home of ragtime music and Josephine, who seemed to feel the music right down to her very core, longed to dance to it up on the vaudeville stages.  With the little bit of money she earned, Josephine went to see the show at the Negro theater, the Booker T. Washington.  

Her first step into vaudeville was putting on street shows, first with other kids, later with the Jone's Family, where she played the slide trombone.  Then she got to be a replacement dancer with The Dixie Steppers on a real stage at the Booker T. Washington.  And she was great.  

So Josephine left home and traveled with The Dixie Steppers to New Orleans, where she became a dresser instead of a dancer.  When she ran into the Jones Family, the Dixie Steppers told her to stay with them - she just wasn't stage material in their opinion.  

But Josephine wanted to dance and so she stowed away on a costume trunk when The Dixie Steppers traveled up north to Philadelphia.  There, they let her dance and shimmy again and at age 15, Josephine married and became Josephine Baker.  

And then she left Philadelphia and her husband and traveled to New York City and its beckoning Broadway lights.

And the rest is history.  From New York, Josephine went to Paris, where she was quite a sensation, on her own and making lots of money.  And when the war came, instead of running back to America, Josephine became a spy.  After the war, she adopted 12 children, all from different countries, all difference skin tones, they became her Rainbow Tribe.  

And ever after her lavish lifestyle used up all her money, Josephine figured out how to make more.  And she danced til the end of her life, doing exactly what she loved to do.

This is a beautiful book that just has such a musical feel to it.  Written in free verse that mimics the ragtime/jazz music that Josephine loved to dance to.  And, together with artist Christian Robinson's spirited illustrations done in acrylic paints in the vibrant colors of the time and resembling a vaudeville show, Josephine just makes you want to get up and dance, too, or at least tap your toe while you read.   

February is Black History Month and that is a perfect time for reading and learning about this strong, incredible  lady. 

Experience some of the favor of the music that made Josephine want to dance in this trailer created by Christian Robinson, with music provided by Morgan Powell (the author's husband) on his jazz trombone. 

This book is recommended for readers age 8+

This book was received from the publisher

FEBRUARY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH

This is book 2 of my 2014 Nonfiction Picture Book Reading Challenge hosted by Kid Lit Frenzy

Serafina's Promise by Ann E. Burg

Living in abject poverty in Haiti, 11 year old Serafina makes a secret promise to her deceased little brother Pierre that she will someday go to school and become a healer so that she can save little babies like him.  She wants to be just like her hero Antoinette Solaine, the healer who tried to save Pierre.

The only problem is that Serafina has never been to school and her parents can't afford to buy the necessary uniform to send her.  And it isn't just the money.  Her family needs Serafina's help to get water for them several times a day, to collect wood and charcoal so they can cook, to sweep their makeshift home, and anything else a young girl can do for her parents and grandmother, Gogo.

But Serafina comes up with a plan and presents it to her father on their way to Port-au-Prince for flag days events.  He tells her to talk to her mother about her plan, but before that can happen, the rainy season arrives and a flood sweeps Serafina's home, village and even some neighbors away.

Moving away to higher ground, they slowly rebuilt their home using pieces of metal and wood that Serafina's father finds and brings home.  And he even brings seeds for Serafina and Gogo to plant herbs and vegetables to sell in the market and make money for a school uniform.

And finally the day comes when Serafina gets her new school uniform and begins school.   But then the earthquake of 2010 happens and everything changes again.  It looks like Serafina's dream of becoming a doctor may have become a victim of this terrible disaster.

Serafina's Promise is a lovely story written in free verse, which seems so right for a girl who speaks in very melodic sounding Haitian Creole.  In fact, the novel is sprinkled with words and phrases in Haitian Creole to give the reader some sense of what it sounds like, along with a pronunciation guide and glossary.  And perhaps because I have heard Haitian Creole all my life, I didn't have a problem placing the geographic location of the novel as many seem to have had.  The time of the novel just as confusing to me as it was to others, until that terrible earthquake hit.  Both of these are drawbacks to an otherwise lovely story.

But of course Serafina's Promise isn't about current events, but how those events beyond our control bring out the true person that we are.  And for Serafina, just 11, that is a strong, generous, loving, caring person.  Since the story is told by Serafina, we are privileged to know what exactly what she is thinking at all times.  Though poverty surrounds Serafina and her family, she never slips into self-pity.  Instead, she shows us what a loving family she has, how they struggle on despite despair, disaster and disappointment.

Warm and uplifting, you will root for Serafina from start to finish.  Serafina's Promise is an inspiring  novel not to be missed.

This book is recommended for readers age 9+
This book was borrowed from a friend.

Brick by Brick by Charles R. Smith, Jr. Illustrated by Floyd Cooper

We see pictures of the White House everyday in newspapers, magazines, on televison.  We use it as a metonym when we say the White House meaning the president and/or his staff.  But how often do we think about how or by whom the White House was built.

Brick by Brick is about the first White House that was built for the new president of the United States, George Washington, back in 1792.  It was a big job and required a lot of workers.  Local workers were hired as well as free blacks, but when that wasn't enough, slaves were used:

Black hands,
white hands,
free hands,
slave hands.

 But while everyone else was paid for their labor, slaves were hired out by their masters who collected their pay and kept it for themselves:

Slave hands saw
twelve hours a day,
but slave owners take
slave hand's pay.

But as new skills are learned, some slaves were able to receive pay and to save to buy their freedom:

Slave hand build

and slave hands save

shillings to be free

and no longer a slave.

The story of the slave labor in Brick by Brick is written in sparse verse, with four lines to a stanza, repetitiously using the word slave yet it paints am incredibly vivid picture of the blood, sweat and hard work that these men and boys were forced to do by their masters.   What makes this such an outstanding book is that Smith uses the names of real slaves he discovered while doing the research for Brick by Brick.  In this way, he humanizes them for us, turns them into real people rather than allowing them to remain a nameless, faceless, anonymous people, easy to overlook, easy to hurt and easy forget about.

And just as Smith's words give the slaves an identity, the illustrations give them a face, making the job all the more real and the workers all the more human for the reader.  The illustrations were done by Floyd Cooper, one of my favorite illustraters.   Cooper's oil wash paintings, done in earth tones, makes us feel the hot sun burning down on the workers, the sweat running down their bodies, the pain in their arms and legs, the blisters and aching back and muscles that must have plagued these men and boys day in and day out.

Brick by Brick is a poignant narrative that should be read aloud to appreciate its full impact and meaning.  It is a book that should not be missed by anyone interested in American history and/or African American history.  Be sure to read the author's note at the back of the book that explains why slaves were used to build the White House.

Nonfiction Monday is a weekly event hosted this week at Sally's Bookshelf

This is book 7 of my 2013 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge hosted by Kid Lit Frenzy

Etched in Clay: The Life of Dave, Enslaved Potter and Poet by Andrea Cheng

A few years ago, we met Dave in Labab Carrick Hill's wonderful picture book Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave, illustrated by Bryan Collier.  This year, we meet Dave again in Andrea Cheng's new verse novel for middle graders.

In Etched in Clay, Cheng imagines Dave's life from the day he was bought for $500. at auction as a strong, intelligent young man approximately 17 years old.  He was bought in 1815 by Harvey Drake as a slave to help dig up clay for the Potterville Stoneware Manufactory, a business founded by relatives Abner and Amos Landrum.   Drake, now a partner in the business, gives the new slave the name Dave.

One day, while watching Master Drake turning a pot, Dave is asked if he would like to learn how to do it.  Dave turns out to be a quick learner and an imaginative artisan, displaying more talent than most in throwing, shaping and glazing good looking saleable clay pots and jars.   And he enjoys creating different kinds in various sizes for different uses.

One day, Drake's wife Sarah, a religious woman, tells her husband to give Dave a spelling book to help in learn to read, so he may read the Scriptures and be saved.  Defying the law against it, Dave does learn to read as well as write and soon he is etching his name on the pots and jars he creates.  Later, he begins to write short verses on them.  Even when he is told to stop do this, Dave defies the order and continues to express himself.

Dave's own life isn't quite as satisfying as his life as a potter.  Because he is property, he has no freedom.  He is bought and sold several times to various members of the Drake and Landrum family.  His first wife Eliza is sold despite his begging to spare her.  His second wife is taken away to live elsewhere, and even the young stepsons he has grown to love are sold.  And one night, Dave got so drunk, he laid on the railroad tracks to rest and lost a leg when the train ran over it, saving him from being moved to Louisiana, but making other things more difficult to do.

Etched in Clay is the story of Dave's life as Cheng imagined it to be like based on what little known facts there are about this gifted potter and his exquisite pottery, often using the very words Dave etched in clay to piece it together.  It is written in a series of spare free verse poems from the perspective of not only Dave but of every important person in his life, creating not just Dave's biography but giving the reader a more rounded sense of what his life really might have been like:

Someday the world will read
my word etched in clay
on the side of this jar
and know about the shackles
around out legs
and the whips
upon our backs.
I am not afraid
to write on a jar
and fire it hot
so my word.
can never be erased (pg 63-64)

Dave and Eliza

Not only did Cheng write the poems in Etched in Clay, but she has also created brilliant woodcuts to illustrate them.  The simple black and white woodcuts, a common form of graphic illustration in the 19th century, have a rather primitive folk art feel to them reflecting the crude conditions in which the slaves were forced to live.

Cheng has included a map of South Carolina showing places relevant to Dave's life and a short who's who of the different narrators used in the book as well as an afterward, history of Edgefield Pottery (one of the places Dave made pots and jars), some of Dave's poems and a list of sources used.

Etched in Clay is an unforgettable, inspiring story of a quiet rebel and artisan that is not to be missed.

This book is recommended for readers age 10+
This book was borrowed from the NYPL

You can download a Classroom Guide for Etched in Clay HERE

You can see how Andrea Cheng made the woodcuts for Etched in Clay HERE

You can see a wonderful example of a Jar made by Dave HERE 

His Name Was Raoul Wallenberg: Courage, Rescue and Mystery During World War II by Louise Borden

In January, I was very pleased to learn that Louise Borden and her book His Name Was Raoul Wallenberg had been named winner of the 2013 Sydney Taylor Book Award for Older Readers by the Association of Jewish Libraries.  The Sydney Taylor Book Awards are given annually to those outstanding works that authentically portray the Jewish experience. 

Born into a relatively well-to-do family of bankers in Stockholm, Sweden in 1912, Raoul Wallenberg was always excited and curious about everything and his endeavors were encouraged and supported by his family.  At age 11, he traveled alone from Sweden to Turkey on the Orient Express to visit his grandfather, Gustaf Wallenberg, Sweden's minister to Turkey.  And at age 19, he left Sweden to attend college at the University of Michigan, majoring in architecture.  When he returned to Europe, Raoul spent time travelling and as he did, he began to hear stories from Jews who has escaped Hitler's Germany, stories about new laws, beatings and even murder inflicted on Jews by the Nazi government. 

Raoul had taken a job and was an excellent salesman, helped by his ability to speak different languages.   But pretty soon the world was at war.  As he watched country after country fall to Nazi occupation, he worried about Sweden's neutrality.  Denmark and Norway, close neighbor, had already fallen to the Nazis.  When roundups and deportations were announced in Denmark in 1943, Sweden gave permission for Danish Jews to enter the country, saved by the many Danish fisherman willing to sail them there.  Swedish freedom and neutrality remained intact.

Hungary was also a country with a large Jewish population, but it was not a neutral and in 1944, it, too, became a Nazi occupied country.  Roundups and deportations of Hungarian Jews began and many went to the Swedish embassy seeking visas to Sweden.  But the War Refugee Board in America wanted a neutral Swede to organize some relief for the Jews in Hungary.  Raoul Wallenberg, with his  many languages and skill as a salesman, was just the person they needed. 

Wallenberg devised a legal looking Protection Pass or Schutzpass that were like Swedish passports and protected the bearer from deportation. Wallenberg even created a single Schutzpass that protected whole families.  But the Schutzpass, which probably saved around 20,000 people, was only one way Wallenberg worked to help Hungarian Jews. 

Ironically, the man who worked tirelessly to save Jews, was picked up by the Soviet military in Hungary and on January 17, 1945, he was last seen being driven away in a Soviet car, and was never to be heard from again. 

The details of Wallenberg's life and the work he did saving Jews in Hungary are all nicely detailed in-depth in Borden's free verse biography of this incredible man.  His Name Was Raoul Wallenbergis beautifully put together, divided into 15 sections, each one chronicling a period of Wallenberg's life with a wealth of supporting photographs and other documents that give a comprehensive picture of his life as he grows and changes and even goes beyond his disappearance up to the present.   As you will discover when you read the Author's Note at the back, Borden had the privilege of working closely with his family over many years and so had much more personal insight into the real child and man that was Raoul Wallenberg than biographers are generally privy to.  And that shows throughout the book.

But His Name Was Raoul Wallenberg is more than just a biography, it is a shining example of one man who rose to the challenge at a very bleak time in history and who made a difference in the world, saving so many Hungarian Jews from certain death.  Borden has written a compelling book that is a fine addition to the whole body of Holocaust literature and anyone interested in the Jewish experience at that time.

Raoul Wallenberg was named Righteous Among The Nations by Yad Vashem in 1963 in Israel.

Come back tomorrow for an interview with Louise Borden.

This book is recommended for readers age 12+
This book was purchased for my personal library

You can find more information about Raoul Wallenberg at his alma mater, the University of Michigan, here

You can find more on Raoul Wallenberg and the plight of Hungarian Jews at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum here

Be sure to visit Louise Borden's website here

This review also appears on my other blog The Children's War

Fly High! The Story of Bessie Coleman by Louise Borden and Mary Kay Kroeger, illustrated by Teresa Flavin

February is Black History Month and I thought I would begin the month with a look at the life of Bessie Coleman.  Bessie was the first female African American pilot AND the first African American to hold an international pilot license.   Those are certainly achievements that deserved to be honored and celebrated.

And that is precisely what Louise Borden and Mary Kay Kroeger do in this picture book biography of Bessie.  Born in 1892, Bessie was the 10th child of 13, growing up in a small house in Waxahachie, Texas.  She was able to attend school, but only when there was no cotton to pick.  But Bessie learned her arithmetic well and was able to make sure her family wasn't cheated when the cotton was weighed.

But Bessie wanted more and when she was 23, she moved to Chicago, where her brother was a Pullman porter.  She took a job giving manicures at a barber shop and listened to all the talk among the men.  That's where she heard about French female pilots from the soldiers returning from the Great War.  They must be somebody, she thought and from than on, she worked hard to save money to go to France and learn to fly.

And she did just that.  In 1921, Bessie earned her international pilot license and began stunt flying all over the United States and even dreamed of opening her own flying school, but that was a dream not to be realized.  First, she was in a crash with laid her up for months.  Then one day, in 1926, while taking a very shabby plane out for a test run, she was killed along with her mechanic.  Bessie was only 34 years old.

Fly High! is an ideal Black History Month introductory biography for young readers.  It is written in free verse, in language that is simple and direct, but not condescending to the reader.   But most importantly, it is the story of one woman's courage and determination against all odds to realize her dream of flying.  And it is an inspirational story - education was a luxury back in the early part of the 20th century for many kids who had to earn money to help support their family, but Bessie persevered - walking miles and miles to school, when she could attend, and to pick up and return the laundry her mother did to earn money.

Accompanying the text and adding so much to the story of Bessie Coleman's story, are plenty of beautiful, timely, folk-art inspired gouache paintings in bright pastel shades by Teresa Flavin.  And like the text, they are simple and direct, bringing it altogether.

All unconventional dreams carry a risk and Bessie's dream of flying was no different.  But Bessie was a trail blazer and her untimely death in the prime of her life shouldn't detract from that.  She had an indomitable spirit was so admirable and that we should always celebrate and Borden, Kroeger and Flavin have done a commendable job showing why.

This book is recommended for readers 9+
This book was borrowed from Contee Cullen Branch of the NYPL

This is book 2 of my Non-Fiction Picture Book Challenge hosted by Kid Lit Frenzy