Rose Valland lived in Paris and was the curator at the Jeu de Paume Museum. She loved all kinds of art, but Hitler and the Nazis did not approve of modern art and destroyed it in their war across Europe. When they reached France, they used the Jeu de Paume Museum as a staging area. All the staff of the museum left except for Rose. She stayed, quiet and shy, often unnoticed by the soldiers. But Rose could understand the German they spoke and soon started taking notes about their plans to move precious art via train. Rose became a spy, sharing her knowledge with the French Resistance and allowing many pieces to be saved. When the war ended, many art pieces were missing, and Rose still had her many notes about where that art had been sent, saving even more.
Told in a way that children will understand the preciousness of the art, the violent hate of the Nazis, and the importance of standing up for what is right, even in a quiet way. This book celebrates the reserved heroes who made a huge difference simply by noticing what was happening and being brave enough to share information. The art in the book celebrates art but also celebrates Rose Vallard, quiet and drab, courageous and integral.
A timely nonfiction picture book of resistance and the importance of art. Appropriate for ages 6-9.
This is the true story of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, who was a Portuguese diplomat with the power to give or deny visas. As the Nazis approached, refugees started to flee France to Portugal since Spain was denying them refuge. Mendes thwarted his government’s guidance and rules on giving visas and in the course of 23 days in 1940 gave out thousands of visas to all sorts of people. He recognized that these people were the same as his own family experiencing it. Mendes saved thousands of people, even showing them a safe way to enter Portugal as the borders closed. He paid for it though, as he lost his position, his home and his family were forced onto the streets.
Such a timely title during the American immigration crisis, this picture book nonfiction shows everyone that whatever their role and what they are being told to do, there are choices that can save lives and make a difference. Brown’s writing takes a complex story and reworks it for children without losing any of its emotional impact. She takes time to explain how Mendes fretted over his decision to defy his government, showing that it was not simple and that afterwards he was impacted by the choices he made. The illustrations are done in pencil with digital coloring, offering fine lines that show life before the war, maps of the impact, and the suffering of refugees as they wait. They capture emotion clearly and support the story well.
A story that shows how civil disobedience is a powerful force. Appropriate for ages 6-10.
Reviewed from e-galley provided by Chronicle Books.
This nonfiction picture book explains to children that LGBTQIA people used to not be able to share openly about their sexuality. Instead, they used a code and asked one another if they were a friend of Dorothy. The book explores why it was unsafe to share sexuality openly with people losing their jobs, being arrested or placed in mental institutions. Then there are the people who hear the code who are working for the government. But they could never figure out who this mysterious Dorothy was. There are some ideas about why the name Dorothy was chosen. The ending returns to the present day and all the progress that has been made for LGBTQIA rights with the caveat about the continued dangers and threats to those who come out.
Lukoff tells the history of LGBTQ rights in America using a child-focused approach by focusing on the code phrase. It’s a clever way to share the information of past injustice, modern progress and all the way yet to go. Illustrations by Hastings are colorful at times and other times capture the bleakness of government surveillance.
All young friends of Dorothy will find a welcoming place in these pages. Appropriate for ages 5-9.
Reviewed from a copy provided by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.
Fish Fry Friday by Winsome Bingham, illustrated by C. G. Esperanza (9781419766930)
In this companion book to Soul Food Sunday, a grandson gets to spend his day off of school with his grandmother fishing. She is known as a lucky charm at the pier and is one of the best fishers out there. Everyone cheers when she arrives and she waves like a queen. After the two catch all sorts of fish, each out declared his grandmother’s favorite, they head back home to clean and filet them. Next comes the batter and finally the real favorite, hushpuppies!
This picture book is a celebration of how food brings people together and transcends generations. The joy of the two characters spending time together and loving one another is just as filling as the meal they create together. Children will love the time spent on the pier fishing as well as the time in the kitchen. Award-winning illustrator Esperanza captures the colorful characters and their cooking with energy and detail.
A delicious addition to the soul food celebration. Appropriate for ages 4-6.
Reviewed from e-galley provided by Abrams Books for Young Readers.
This remarkably beautiful picture book tells the history of where human beings started, Africa. It is the story of where language began and where art started on cave walls and faces. It speaks to the creation of music and dance. It tells of survival, of invention, of building and planting. It was where people traveled from using their boats to cross watery divisions and to populate the world. It is our story, of our origins and the many gifts created in Africa.
Smith has crafted such beauty on these pages with his art. The paintings are done in acrylic and offer a gorgeous textural experience to the reader that creates depth and wonder. This book is a clear response to the erasure of Black history and the origins of humans as reflected in the author note. Throughout the book both in text and image, there is joy and pride. There is a richness in both as well, a focus on the achievements, the impacts and the importance of that history.
Beautiful and impactful, this book belongs in all libraries. Appropriate for ages 5-9.
Reviewed from library copy.
When I Hear Spirituals by Cheryl Willis Hudson, illustrated by London Ladd (9780823453801)
In a glorious combination of verse and lines from well-known African-American spirituals, this picture book soars. A young girl expresses what hearing spirituals does to her emotionally and readers are along for the journey. From tears to joy to wanting to dance to acknowledging heroes and movements of the past, this book explores the power of music to connect and convey.
The incorporation of a verse of a corresponding spiritual is particularly effective, allowing the book to be not just read aloud but sung aloud. The illustrations add to the emotional journey, using deep colors, famous African-American figures, and a connection to church.
A great introduction to spirituals as a music form or a celebration for those already familiar. Appropriate for ages 5-9.
It was 1858 and the Thames River in London smelled terrible. The problem was that the river was full of poop. The problem had started in 1500, when the sewers were emptied by men who shoveled them out at night. But the population kept on growing. By 1919, there were many more people in London and flush toilets are growing in popularity, but there is no way to get rid of all of the human feces, so some people connected their homes directly to the sewer, sending it all to the river. Cholera epidemics started killing thousands of people, but cholera is blamed on smelly air rather than polluted water, so they kept happening. In 1856, Bazalgette submits a plan to create large sewer pipes to take the sewage away from the river. His plan is finally approved in 1858 after a very hot summer causes the smell to get even worse.
Told with a merry tone, this book embraces the stink of history and shows how one man can change the lives of so many, rescuing them from disease and death. Paeff packs a lot of history into this picture book, making it all readable and fascinating through her use of historical quotes combined with a focused pared down version of what happened. Her writing is engaging and interesting, offering lots of information without ever overwhelming the story itself.
Carpenter’s art is just as stinky as can be. She captures the sewage entering the Thames, the miasma of stench coming off the river in the heat, and the grossness of dumped chamber pots. Against that unclean setting, a small baby is born and becomes an engineer who creates grand tunnels where the air is clear once again. Add in the macabre face of cholera and you have a book that is hard to look away from.
Fascinating, stinky and delightful. Appropriate for ages 6-9.
Reviewed from e-galley provided by Margaret K. McElderry Books.
A Plan for the People by Lindsey McDivitt, illustrated by Charly Palmer (9780802855022)
This picture book biography of the great Nelson Mandela explores his adult life as first an attorney and then a prisoner and then president. Mandela defended people against the unjust White laws of apartheid that drove dark-skinned South Africans into impoverished communities and took away their rights. He joined the African National Congress, helping draft their Freedom Charter. Mandela was a leader in the fight for justice, soon arrested as an activist, tried and sent to Robben Island. Mandela was placed in a small, cold cell and separated from those he loved, allowed just one visitor in his first year and only two letters sent and received. But Mandela and others created ways to communicate and continue to learn. He saw ways to open the hearts of the guards in the prison, learning about their history as well as his own. Along the way, they gained more freedoms in the prison, eventually getting released as international pressure mounted. Mandela was elected President and formed a new multiracial government with new freedoms for everyone.
McDivitt shares in her Author’s Note that she was born in South Africa as a white person. Her background gives her an interesting lens of understanding from which to write a biography of Nelson Mandela. She does so with a real depth, allowing Mandela’s decades in prison to form a lot of the book and also focusing on the injustice of apartheid and its ramifications on its victims. Throughout her prose, she uses vivid imagery from South Africa that help readers better understand the impact and power of Mandela.
Palmer’s art beautifully captures Mandela throughout his adult life. From the days in prison to connecting with fellow prisoners and guards to eventually donning his signature vibrant tunics as President. The illustrations show the injustice of apartheid, the horrors of the prison, and the rise of Mandela as a world leader.
An important look at Mandela’s life and work. Appropriate for ages 7-10.
As Czechoslovakia is taken over by the Nazis in 1938, one quiet man stepped forward and saved almost 700 children. At age 29, Nicky was invited to visit Prague while on a ski trip. At the same time, Vera was growing up outside of Prague, happily adopting stray cats. They were one of the only Jewish families in the town, but that didn’t matter in their lives. The in October the German army marched into Czechoslovakia and Vera’s parents learned of a British man who was saving children. That man was Nicky. Understanding that he could do something, he worked in Prague making lists of children and finding train connections. When he returned to London, he found foster families for the children and acquire visas and tickets with his own money, sometimes needing to create his own stamps. Vera left home with 76 other children on a train. In total, 669 children reached London safely. No one heard of Nicky’s quiet work until his wife found the records. Then Nicky’s work was revealed to everyone on a popular TV show, and his life is still celebrated.
Sís has created a haunting yet also celebratory nonfiction picture book that describes the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia through a child’s eyes and also offers the lens of a man who realizes the potential human disaster about to occur and does something to rescue the children. The tension between the two is beautifully done, creating a deep understanding of what was at stake and the speed at which something needed to happen. The book is one that will make you actually cry, particularly towards the end when the survivors are there to thank Nicky for what he did for them. Crushingly moving.
As always Sís’s art is entirely its own style. He offers overhead maps of Vera’s small town and her life. He also shares maps of Europe and whimsical images that are almost folkloric in their storytelling. It’s a lovely mix of story, truth and heroism.
Truly remarkable, this is a picture book to read with tissues nearby. Appropriate for ages 7-10.
Reviewed from e-galley provided by Norton Young Readers.
Mexique by María José Ferrada, illustrated by Ana Penyas (9780802855459)
In a true story, over 400 children fled the violence of the Spanish Civil War. They were put on a boat and sent to Morelia, Mexico in 1937. Their families expected only to be separated from them for a few months, like an extended summer vacation, nothing more. Told from the point of view of one of the children, this book shows their time aboard the boat to their arrival in Mexico. The war was a hand that shook their lives apart, separated them and sent them adrift. But there were other hands too, hands of the older children who took care of the little ones. Not all of the older children were kind, sometimes stealing from the little kids. They arrived in Mexico, bringing the impact of the war with them, heading unknowingly into permanent exile.
Ferrada’s text is poetic and haunting. She writes of the hope of when the children embark, the bitter choice that their parents had to make in sending them to safety. She writes of the time aboard ship, of games played and small wars fought. She writes of long lonely nights at sea until the waving crowds welcome them to Mexico. The story stops there, continued in an afterword the explains what happened to the “Children of Morelia” and what history had in store for them.
The illustrations are just as haunting as the text. Done in a limited color palette with often jagged lines of ship railings and waves, they are sharp and unsettling. Showing the somber farewells, the crowds of children, they are sorrowful and foretell the longer refugee story ahead.
Somber, beautiful and timely. Appropriate for ages 5-7.
Reviewed from copy provided by Eerdman’s Books for Young Readers.
The first Boeing 747 was built in 1968, though it did have one problem, it couldn’t fly! It was called a jumbo jet because it was so big. The plane had to use the same principles as other airplanes, a critical combination of lift, thrust and drag. Just to be built, a new factory had to be created that was large enough to house the process and the jumbo jet. The building is still the largest by volume in the world. New ways of driving the big plane, new giant-sized landing gear, and new safety measures had to be designed and practiced. A few months after the first plane came off of the assembly line to delighted crowds, the plane was ready for its first test flight. Get ready for a dramatic take off!
Gall delights in the size and scope of the jumbo jet as well as the incredible feat it was for Boeing to have it finished in only 28 months, building the plane and the factory at the same time. Readers are introduced to the concepts behind airplane flight and design, shown concepts for what the airplane could have looked like inside, and given information on the earliest flying machines. The scientific details are shared with clearly and as part of the overall story. Additional fun facts, a glossary and sources are offered at the end of the book.
The illustrations by Gall have a marvelous vintage vibe that places the book firmly in the 1960’s. They are clearly modern as well with detailed images of the plane, cutaways to show the interior, and detailed images of scientific concepts.
This nonfiction picture book soars! Appropriate for ages 5-7.
Reviewed from egalley provided by Roaring Brook Press.
Waking Brain Cells 