Book Reviews

For more children's book reviews and recommended book lists, visit Recommended Teaching Resources page.

BOOK REVIEW

Broken Memory

by Élisabeth Combres

Without sacrificing the horrors of the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda, Broken Memory surprises by virtue of its affecting subtlety. It tells the story of the child survivor Emma who attempts to piece together her fragmentary memories about the death of her mother. The novel opens with the home invasion and murder of Emma’s mother at the hands of a roving band of Hutu assassins. In the years that follow Emma struggles to come back into the world and rebuild her life. Encountering another young survivor allows Emma to find a renewed sense of purpose. Writer Élisabeth Combres, a long-time reporter, draws from interviews she conducted with Rwandan child survivors, which lends the novel an authentic voice. But, it is Combres’ deft touch that allows the novel to stay with you. By respecting the reader’s ability to appreciate a clear-eyed and responsible story about survival, Broken Memory succeeds because it moves past sensationalism to a meditation on living with the memory of unspeakable acts. Young readers will connect with this story of survival because it offers both and hope and realism.

-- Reviewed LaTissia Mitchell, Bookstore Assistant Manager

For further analysis of this book and other children's books about Africa, visit Africa Access.
For background information on Rwanda and the topics discussed in this book, visit TransAfrica Forum. 

BOOK REVIEW

Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow

by James Sturm, Rich Tommaso

Though the title would suggest otherwise, Satchel Paige: Striking out Jim Crow isn’t exactly a biography of the famous Negro League pitcher, Satchel Paige. The story is not told from his perspective and for the most part, we don’t get too much information about Paige’s personal life. But what this artful little graphic novel lacks in biographical insight, it more than makes up for in storytelling, historical depth, and its exploration of racial issues. Overall, it is a neatly drawn, well-written story that goes beyond what young readers typically learn about Jim Crow America.

Instead of presenting a traditional biography of Paige, the book employs fictional narration and intersperses it with small pockets of information about Paige’s career.  The narration is that of Emmet Wilson Jr., a sharecropper from Alabama. Readers follow Emmet’s journey as he goes from being a rookie player in the Negro Leagues, batting against Paige himself, to being a laborer for wealthy, white landowners. The book climaxes when Paige’s team comes to Emmet’s town to play against the local all-white baseball team, the Tuckawilla All Stars. After years of not playing, the book ends after Emmet gets to see his old rival strikeout the very same men he works for.

The decision to tell the story from Emmet’s perspective, as opposed to Paige’s, is a compelling one. More than anything, it allows for a more complex portrayal of the racism that existed during Paige’s time. Instead of lingering on classic textbook examples of Jim Crow - segregated public spaces, separate baseball teams for blacks and whites - Emmet’s narration exposes the racial prejudice and privilege that existed in people’s attitudes and everyday behaviors. A prime example is the relationship between Emmet and his white employers, the Jennings twins. The twins, who know nothing about agriculture, patronize Emmet about his farming and let their livestock wander on to his crops. When they repeatedly catch Emmet working without his son, Emmet Jr. (who is at school), they react violently, beating Emmet Jr. on his way home from a neighbor’s house. Emmet’s reaction to all of this however, is to “humble down.” As he says, “What else was I to do?  Cry about my rights? Tell them I am bein’ mistreated? You do that and you die no different than Lucas Crutchfield.” These words are accompanied by a chilling panel,one that shows the silhouette of a man hanging from a noose.

Such segments effectively demonstrate to readers that Jim Crow racism was not merely a set of laws enforced by the government, but something created and carried out by the actions and attitudes of everyday people. More importantly, it was carried out against everyday African Americans, not just talented athletes such as Satchel Paige. Yet it is through reading about someone like Emmet that readers gain a profound appreciation for Paige as they can better understand the racism he had to endure as well as the hope he provided for his fans. Indeed, when Paige strikes out the all-white team towards the end of the story, it feels not so much a triumph for Paige as it does for Emmet and his son. Readers also feel this triumph, while knowing in the back of their minds that history has many more struggles to bring.

The book does have some drawbacks. For one thing, women are largely absent from the story.  Even Emmet’s wife, Frances, is mentioned only a handful of times. This isn’t surprising considering the story allows for little character development outside of Emmet. But given all the insight that Emmet’s narration provides us, one still wonders what a female experience like Frances’ would’ve looked like in that era, or what Satchel Paige would have meant to her (after all, men aren’t the only ones who take inspiration from athletic heroes).

Additionally, because of the way the plot jumps forward in time and between Emmet and Paige’s stories, the book could be confusing for some younger readers; it is probably best suited for a upper middle school/lower high school reading level. Not to mention, anyone unfamiliar with baseball might have a hard time understanding some of the narrator’s sports jargon. However, Rich Tommaso’s illustrations and the book’s comic format will definitely appeal to those students less eager to read. With a color palette of brown, black and white, Tommaso’s heavily inked drawings give the story a subdued, antiquated look, drawing the reader into the story’s setting.

Complete with an extensive introduction about the Negro Leagues and a section of panel discussion topics, this book is great for the home or for the classroom. And whether or not you’re a sports fan, comics lover, or simply wishing to learn more about American history, Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow is sure to enlighten both as a story as well as a glimpse into our country’s past.

-- Reviewed by Julie Smolinski. Julie is a writer and graphic novel enthusiast currently volunteering with Teaching for Change's publications department. In 2009, she wrote her senior thesis on masculinity and comic books and has since continued exploring the potential that graphic novels hold for inspiring readers.

BOOK REVIEW

Child of the Civil Rights Movement

by Paula Young Shelton, Raul Colon

Teachers are often frustrated with how to teach historical events in an accurate and nuanced way. This is particularly challenging for early elementary teachers when mob violence and complex philosophical controversies are a central part of the story. Teaching the history of the modern Civil Rights Movement presents a special difficulty because so many of its veterans are still living and parts of the story have become absorbed as mythology into the mainstream culture. Therefore, it is a joy to read Child of the Civil Rights Movement by Paula Young Shelton and Raul Colon. Who better to tell the story than a first-grade teacher whose parents were on the front lines of the Movement? Shelton and Colon’s book is physically and lyrically beautiful. More importantly, it is written in a way that will resonate emotionally with young children without lying to or scaring them. While it highlights the superstars at the expense of the everyday people who fueled the Movement, the book also places children into the story and lends a humanity and community to the people in leadership without being saccharine. This is a lovely and long-awaited book.

-- Reviewed Dr. Jenice L. View Assistant Professor, George Mason University and Teaching for Change Senior Professional Development Coordinator.

One of the best children’s books in recent years is Natasha Anastasia Tarpley’s Destiny’s Gift. Destiny, a little girl who loves words, writing and reading, spends all of her free time at a local independent bookstore, Wade’s Books. Mrs. Wade, who runs the store, enjoys her company and encourages her writing and learning. One day, Mrs. Wade gets a notice that the rent on the store is being raised to a level that she cannot afford. When a devastated Destiny tells her parents, they bring the neighborhood together for a series of actions: a protest, a fundraising block party and book sale, signs, flyers and media alerts. Destiny writes her own token of support, a piece containing everything she loves about the bookstore, which she presents to Mrs. Wade on her own. The book ends with no clear resolution about the fate of the bookstore, but on a moment of deep connection between two generations of women who love words and care about each other.

Destiny’s Gift embodies a number of positive values that make this an excellent story for children. The book contributes to positive and central depictions of women and men of color, as Destiny and Mrs. Wade are both African American and nearly all the other characters appear to be people of color. The authors show people of color owning businesses, engaging in activism to support their community, having happy relationships and strong families, and valuing learning.

The book specifically centers around excellent women of color characters, and promotes women’s agency – and men’s support of women’s agency – in the structure of its story. Mrs. Wade is an African American woman business owner, and her story is told without needing to mention her relationship status. Destiny is a smart and talented African American girl whose parents value her and take her concerns seriously, especially when her love of the bookstore translates into the need for action. Her mother and father rise to the challenge and equally devote their time to helping fight for the store, and both men and women are depicted in scenes of the community.

Neither children nor adults are one-dimensional, but display complexity in their feelings and actions. Mrs. Wade is Destiny’s friend and mentor, sharing her knowledge while supporting Destiny’s learning. Destiny also plays a role in the activism that follows the news of the stores closing. Adults display vulnerability, and children are able to give support.

The story line itself is realistic and engaging without depending on an easy resolution to the central problem. In fact, the uncertainty about the bookstore’s fate can serve as a springboard to interesting conversations with the child reader, and a deeper understanding of the social and economic forces at work behind the situation. The book also serves as a way to introduce strategies for activism and social change to children.

Adjoa J. Burrowes’s engaging illustrations combine paper cutouts, watercolors and line drawings to engage readers of all ages, and contribute a great deal to the success of the story. However, the book would benefit from more diversity of body types and the inclusion of visibly disabled people.

Destiny’s Gift is that rare book that sends strong positive messages without preachiness. Its colorful, detailed illustrations and compelling story work together to give the central characters personality and depth, and people of all ages can learn from its ethics of community and caring.

-- Reviewed by Katie Seitz, Teaching for Change Bookstore Bookseller.

BOOK REVIEW

The Peace Book

written and illustrated by Todd Parr

"I'm colorblind. Yellow, brown, green, purple - I treat everyone the same."

"We're all the same on the inside."

Most of us have heard people profess their ability to look past difference by saying that, deep down, humans are all the same. While the intent behind these words is usually admirable, those who erase or miscast difference in the service of tolerance can sometimes unthinkingly impose their narrative of normal, at the expense of others’ very real differences in culture and values.  Such is the problem of The Peace Book, by Todd Parr, which attempts to teach children to embrace difference and peace while struggling with some of the same issues it intends to overcome.

The Peace Book is a striking book, each page a different bright color with bubbly, hand-drawn cartoon characters whose skin tones range from brown to blue. On each page, a sentence starts with “Peace is.” Peace can apparently be any number of things, from growing a garden, to hugging, to watching it snow. The book makes many unstated assumptions that allow us to draw conclusions about the intended audience - white, middle to upper-class American children. For example, “[p]eace is giving shoes to someone who needs them” is a very comfortable sentiment for someone who has never lacked for shoes, and fails to address the root cause of the need. “Peace is traveling to different places” works very well for someone who has the money and mobility to travel - and for whom travel is voluntary. “Peace is learning another language” seems innocuous until we notice that the figures on the page are speaking Japanese, German, Spanish…and Fish and Cat. The book makes no allowance for a child that already – or mostly – speaks another language than English (and then no African or Middle Eastern languages), and invites the startlingly offensive parallel of non-English languages to animal noises.

The art speaks depressingly of the author's limited, inaccurate and often offensive ideas for characterizing people and practices other than the white American standard. "Peace is listening to different kinds of music" depicts a snake-charmer, an trope historically used by the West to exoticize South Asian cultures. The page for "[p]eace is wearing different clothes" creates another offensive parallel between two people shown standing side by side - one in a clown costume, one in an incorrectly drawn niqab. In conjunction with the illustration on the "[p]eace is traveling" page, a person on a camel in a featureless desert, the reader is presented only a caricature of the Middle East and Muslims. As we know from our current political reality, stereotypes of the Middle East and Muslims have had very real and dangerous consequences for people worldwide. When we consider that in recent years most Americans have traveled to the Middle East as soldiers, and that the US depends primarily on the Middle East for the huge amounts of fossil fuels it uses in travel, "[p]eace is traveling" reads as painfully ignorant.

As mentioned before, the human characters in The Peace Book often appear in skin colors not found in nature. However, these are not evenly distributed, and deserve closer examination. Given the range of human skin tones, the fact not a single "main character" has brown or tan skin is troubling. The author is perfectly capable of incorporating brown skin tones, as is evident from the "making new friends" and "being who you are" pages, but brown is apparently only fit for the "group photo"-style layouts. Humans used on pages that refer to some nominally non-white Western culture have a bright yellow or orange skin, except for one, whose skin is blue. The blue character, shown speaking Spanish on the "different languages" page, may alienate children who are already marginalized (as "aliens", often) in much of the United States because of their race or language. I am also concerned that the Japanese-speaking character has bright yellow skin, as it plays into the pernicious stereotype of "yellow people."

On the last page, Parr fills the space with these words: “Peace is being different, feeling good about yourself, and helping others. The world is a better place because of YOU!” I take issue with this ethos, a particularly facile one. Peace, very literally, is the cessation of violence. The things listed in the book are products of a peaceful society, perhaps, but not peace itself. The book’s implicit assertion is that being nice, and doing what one enjoys and is privileged to do in a peaceful society, are bound to make more peace, when we know that simply living our way of life engenders numerous negative consequences for people around the world. A child reading this pablum should be old enough to understand more concrete methods of teaching peace. As for the other elements - difference, good self esteem and helping others - a number of other children's books engage with these themes in a fun and respectful manner.

It may seem to Parr that a child can only conceive of peace as “having enough pizza in the world for everyone,” but we must trust enough in our children to teach them about the underlying notion of world hunger, and that other foods than pizza will be on the menu when it ends. I respect the deep, transformative, radical, difficult work that peace can be. We need a little more faith in the capacity of our children to handle the idea that peace can be hard, can be stretching one’s boundaries, can be changing one’s way of life to preserve another's.

-- Reviewed by Katie Seitz, Teaching for Change Bookstore Bookseller.

BOOK REVIEW

Grace for President

by Kelly DiPucchio, illustrated by LeUyen Pham

Grace for President chronicles the political campaign of Grace Campbell, a smart and ambitious elementary school student who, when she learns that not a single U.S. president has been a woman, decides to be the first. Her teacher has the idea to hold a mock presidential election with another class, so Grace has to run against one of the most popular students in school.

The book follows Grace and her class through an explanation of the U.S. electoral process and a description of her campaign. While the other candidate, Thomas, trusts that all the boys will vote for him and thus does the minimum to reach out to the other students, Grace's integrity leads her to work on realizing her campaign promises--a cleaner, safer school with better food--even before the election. In the end, Grace's hard work and tireless campaigning pay off, and she beats out her rival.

In the story's climax--the election held in the school auditorium--Grace does not win by a landslide, but by a single vote. There is a certain rueful understanding to that margin of victory, and it adds an element of realism to what might otherwise be a conventional hard-work-pays-off narrative. LeUyen Pham's lively illustrations show Grace to be full of spirit and character, and DiPucchio's text gives a clear basic explanation of the U.S. electoral system. Also, the book deserves praise for making its heroine a girl of color.

Surprisingly, the book seems the least thoughtful around race, or the intersection of race and sex. While implicitly decrying Thomas's sexism (he gets his comeuppance for taking the male vote for granted), DiPucchio avoids any discussion of the race issues at play in an election that pits a black girl against a white boy. It seems impossible that such an outspoken child as Grace would not point out the whiteness, as well as maleness, of our past presidents, but it never seems to occur to her. In addition, while Thomas is portrayed as a superstar--a spelling bee winner, athlete, and science whiz--Grace's only attributes seem to be her drive and charm. She collects activities through the course of the story, but starts out as a blank slate, with no extracurricular activities or even hobbies mentioned to round out her personality.

Pham's illustrations create problems of their own. The children depicted are very diverse--within limits. There seem to be very few children of recognizably Asian descent, and shades of brown skin stop at a certain level of darkness, except for a single pictured child. All five authority figures in the book are white or can be read as such, as well as the little boy who casts the deciding vote in Grace's favor. Finally, there are several illustrations of children wearing Native or "Indian-style" traditional clothing as costumes, both trivializing and misrepresenting Indian cultures, especially when juxtaposed with flower- and bird-costumed students.

While eye-catching and relatively progressive in its message, Grace for President perpetuates other existing prejudices and is ultimately, unlike its heroine, not quite what it aspires to be.

-- Reviewed by Katie Seitz, Teaching for Change Bookstore Bookseller.

BOOK REVIEW

Little Brother

by Cory Doctorow

Set in the very near future, Little Brother goes to technological places that Orwell's Big Brother could not. Students that have read 1984 will love the references to Orwell's original and will appreciate the upgrade.

After a major terrorist attack in San Francisco, 17-year-old hacker extraordinaire, w1n5t0n (pronounced "Winston") is arrested by a Department of Homeland Security that has gone on a civil rights-crushing campaign to fight "terrorists." In no time our clever protagonist realizes that the DHS is the real enemy of the American people, although these same American people roll over and endure the loss of rights so that they can feel safer. Sound familiar?

Shortly after the government crackdown, a group of high school kids figure out how to circumvent the surveillance techniques of authorities and launch a movement to jam the system (and not trust anybody over 25, Woohoo!).

This is a young adult novel, so there are some nifty little history lessons about the Free Speech Movement, Emma Goldman, and others along the way. Just watch what happens to the teacher that dares to teach the kids about past mass citizen movements. Throw in a little teenage insecurity about friendships and the opposite sex and the clueless-ness of adults and you have a book that teenagers should love. Rebellious adults will also have a hard time putting this book down, even if it is geared toward the more technologically savvy younger generation.

-- Reviewed by Don Allen, Teaching for Change Bookstore Manager.

BOOK REVIEW

A People's History of the World

by Chris Harman

Chris Harman’s A People’s History of the World can be rightly described as audacious, in concept if not in execution. This work is not a text that comprehensively walks the reader through so enormous a topic as the title suggests. Perhaps the first thing a potential reader of the book should know is that Harman is interested in the history of class struggle specifically (and not necessarily the history of “the world”) from a fairly orthodox Marxist perspective. The author is not a historian, but rather a leading member of the Socialist Workers Party in Britain and the editor of International Socialism. As one learns from the overtly-written conclusion (or by simply gathering from the book’s unceasing theme of class), Harman is interested in world history insofar as it informs the origins of today’s global capitalism. Nothing approaching a comprehensive history of the world is achieved, nor could it be in 620 pages (without counting endnotes).

What Harman does achieve is something resembling an elaborated and updated Communist Manifesto. The author reminds us of the human toll—in war, suffering, and labor—that history’s most powerful elites required to erect their monuments and sustain their empires. Moreover, A People’s History of the World provides a broad-brush account of the changing conditions of exploitation that have propped up the dominant classes ever since the decline of the egalitarian existence of hunter-gatherer societies.

Due to the focus on the origins of industrial capitalism, Harman’s book is heavy on the Europe, light on the rest. There are a few notable but brief sections on Asia, one on the origins of Islam, and a paltry four pages dedicated to “The African Civilizations,” which deal almost entirely with Europe’s domination thereof.

While academics would never accept the sweeping generalizations that Harman sometimes makes (or his reliance on a few main sources for each section), the lay reader may find the abundance of seemingly academic details frustrating. This is especially true when the author lists innovations or thinkers from a given period without explaining them. One also gets the sense, at least in the chapters that cover pre-industrialization, that Harman is going out of his way to show that Europe was not always dominant, whether in innovation or power. The adjective “backward” is frequently employed to such an end. His disdain for what have become the dominant features of the West is nowhere more apparent than in his chapter on Christianity.

Despite overstepping the bounds of what is reasonable to cover in one single-volume tome, A People’s History of the World offers useful insight into the origins of modernity. The introduction features a worthy reminder that violence and oppression as we know them are not in fact part of human nature, but functions of the various hierarchical and labor-specialized social structures that emerged relatively recently in human history.

-- Reviewed by Eagan Heath, Truman Scholar, Teaching For Change Intern (2008).