Review by New York Times Review
CHILDREN, LIKE NATIONS, need heroes to call their own. Parson Mason Weems's "Life of Washington" rolled off the presses in Philadelphia in 1800, mere months after the death of the father of our country, with Weems's stated goal to inspire young Americans to emulate the great man's shining example. We have that book to thank for the compelling image of the rambunctious 6-year-old George chopping down his father's best cherry tree, then fessing up to his misdeed with the immortal words: "I cannot tell a lie." The irrepressible parson, we now know, invented the scene out of whole cloth, which is certainly a tad ironic. Yet less cavalier authors than Weems have wrestled with the question of whether, or to what extent in the seemingly special case of a biography for young readers, a touch-up job might be in order. The 1940 Caldecott Medal winner, "Abraham Lincoln," by Ingri and Edgar Parin d'Aulaire, ends with an illustration of the weary president resting contentedly in a favorite rocker, the Civil War having just come to a successful conclusion. You would never guess Lincoln had those theater tickets. Post-Sendak, picture book authors, biographers included, have had greater latitude for emotional candor than in previous generations. They have also grown far more adventurous in their choice of subjects, expanding the pantheon to include notables as varied as Jackie Robinson, Albert Einstein, the aviator Ruth Elder and the avant-garde composer Charles Ives. The trend was already well underway when Common Core national education standards began giving pride of place to nonfiction in the public school curriculum, greatly amplifying the demand for a broad array of such books. Ten years ago, "The Right Word," a picture-book life of Peter Mark Roget, inventor of the thesaurus, would have been a publishing non-starter - a project "too special" for the market to bear. Happily, all that has changed, and we now have this spirited portrait of the Swiss-born Victorian who found an ingenious way to help people say what they mean. Jen Bryant and Melissa Sweet, whose previous collaborations include biographies of William Carlos Williams and Horace Pippin, have done their homework and considered their audience. Bryant allows the early death of Roget's father, when the boy was 4, to stand for a whole series of family crises that turned him inward from an early age and prompted Roget to adopt obsessive list-making as a self-protective strategy long before it became his life work. The narrative moves swiftly, with Bryant deftly hinting that Roget's immersion in the English language's superabundance of synonyms had everything to do with his lifelong struggle to come to terms with his challenging - depressing? impossible? - family. Sweet's richly layered graphics frame the basic narrative drawings in collaged bits and pieces of calligraphy, antique engraving, archival maps, bookbinding remnants and other evocative oddments that collectively provide an attic-glimpse into the mind of a restless man whose vast vocabulary could barely keep pace with his curiosity. "Mr. Ferris and His Wheel" recounts the pivotal episode in the life of another inventor who made his mark. The engineer George Ferris won the competition to design America's answer to the Eiffel Tower, then - against staggering odds - built his monumental "Monster Wheel" in time for the 1893 Chicago Exposition. It is fascinating to learn that the Ferris wheel got its start in a whir of patriotic fervor and as a cutting-edge applied-science experiment that critics thought insane. While making these historical points might seem enough for one picture book, it is still too bad that in Kathryn Gibbs Davis's narrative Ferris never emerges as more than a stock character in a standard American morality tale of pluck, stick-to-itiveness and mechanical know-how. Gilbert Ford's stylish illustrations have their fine touches of humor and period detail but are similarly cool in color palette as well as emotionally. Missing is a humanizing spark like the one that must have ignited this driven man. In "Star Stuff," Stephanie Roth Sisson zooms in close on her subject's personal dimension from the start, portraying Carl Sagan, quite plausibly, as a wonder-struck schoolboy who grew up to become a wonder-struck - and hugely accomplished - astrophysicist and public figure. The author pinpoints childhood trips to his Brooklyn family's apartment house rooftop, the local library and the 1939 New York World's Fair as formative moments in a largely self-propelled quest that culminated in Sagan's habitual manner of thinking and acting on a cosmic scale. Sisson's intimate, sketch-like drawings suit the early, coming-of-age part of the story particularly well. But a later image of deep space and the unmanned space probes Sagan helped to put there does not quite make the leap into pictorial awesomeness, and the vast sliver of the universe Sagan explored ends up looking a bit cramped in this 40-page volume. IT TURNS OUT that a picture-book biography can have a hero with four legs and a fearsome bark. Emily Arnold McCully's "Strongheart" unearths the little-known (except to die-hard movie buffs) story of the dog who became a silent-film star before Rin Tin Tin. Strongheart - the screen name of Etzel von Oeringen - was a purebred German shepherd descended from a line of champion police dogs. Etzel had the chops to perform daredevil deeds on command, to quickly master new tricks and even to display a repertoire of three-hanky emotions for the camera. How did stardom come his way? McCully points to a devoted director/trainer who, with his screenwriter wife, built a powerful bond with the dog, then made the films that brought them their fleeting fame. McCully, the 1993 Caldecott Medal winner for "Mirette on the High Wire," has done a meticulous job of recreating the quicksilver world of that bygone media age. The megaphones, bobbed hair and jodhpurs are all here. And in Etzel, a dog born and bred to be strong and brave, she has given young readers a rare portrait of a Hollywood hero who was just as heroic off-screen as on. LEONARD S. MARCUS is the author, most recently, of "Randolph Caldecott: The Man Who Could Not Stop Drawing."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [November 2, 2014]
Review by Booklist Review
Carl Sagan is best known for being a renowned expert on the cosmos, but he started out as just a curious kid fascinated by the night sky, and that's where Sisson starts this picture-book biography. As a boy, Carl wonders what stars are made of, and a trip to the library leads him to read, Each star is a sun, which gets him wondering about life on other planets. His youthful daydreams and doodles about space exploration grow into serious scientific inquiry in college, and soon he's designing spacecraft and sending informative greetings to life on other planets as well as hosting a TV show to share with everyone his boundless delight about our place in the universe The Earth and every living thing are made of star stuff. Sisson's cheery, painted pages, some with added-interest vertical foldouts depict Sagan as content and curious, and every night sky is sprinkled with colorful, beautiful stars. This paean to discovery closes with a helpful author's note and further-reading suggestions for any youngsters similarly inspired by Sagan's story.--Hunter, Sarah Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Sisson's loosely sketched mixed-media illustrations trace the life of Carl Sagan, beginning with his childhood spent in Brooklyn, an environment seemingly ill-suited to learning about the stars. Yet thanks to his natural curiosity, a visit to the World's Fair, and the library, Sagan's awareness of science and the universe grew. The book does, too-a spread depicting the hazy sun over Brooklyn rooftops unfolds to show it in space ("Our sun is a big ball of fiery gas held together by gravity," Sagan learns). Sisson goes on to recap Sagan's later endeavors, including becoming an astrophysicist, appearing on TV, and sending messages into via the twin Voyagers. A broader message about the role wonder plays in innovation resonates throughout this story, which concludes with extensive biographical and source notes. Ages 4-8. Agent: Abigail Samoun, Red Fox Literary. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Starred Review. Gr 1-3-Told in narrative format, this beautifully designed and illustrated picture book gives readers a glimpse into the childhood wonderings Sagan experienced as he looked at the night sky and imagined the possibilities. The images are wonderfully childlike, many appearing to be chalk on a dark, night sky background. The simple but lyrical text ("Carl thought about the stars hanging down like bulbs on long black wires") conveys a dreamy, wistful quality, and the comic book-style panels and speech bubbles will keep kids intrigued as Sisson takes Sagan from an inquisitive boy to a scientist working in the field of astronomy. One particularly magnificent page should elicit gasps of awe from readers. It folds out to create a marvelous expanse that extends from a library room, where young Sagan is poring over a book about the solar system, up though the city landscape and ever upward toward the sun. Children will easily relate to and may even see themselves in Sagan's youthful exuberance. Detailed notes illustrate the solid research and facts behind the narrative. A gorgeous, informative offering for biography and science collections.- Maggie Chase, Boise State University, ID (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Beginning with the first page, Sisson showcases the magnitude of the universe, visually presenting the Milky Way and our sun's place in it. Turn the page, and readers move from our sun "in a neighborhood of stars," to our planet, to one place: Brooklyn, New York. There readers meet young Carl, curious about the world around him. As he grows, that general inquisitiveness settles into a passion and an adult craving to know more about stars and solar systems. "It gave Carl goose bumps to think about what he learned about the stars, planets, and the beginnings of life"; that "the Earth and every living thing are made of star stuff." His repeated, geeky boyhood interjection of "Wowie!" exuberantly captures that continuing wonder and passion. Illustrations with shifting perspectives portray Carl standing on a sidewalk that mimics the Earth's curvature or lying on the floor surrounded by space creatures from his imagination. A vertical foldout initially depicts Carl studying in a library; as the page opens (and Carl's knowledge increases), the universe above him expands. Sisson takes her time introducing Sagan, but as he learns more and more and his questions increase in complexity, the pace of the narrative accelerates as readers accompany him on his intellectual journey. An author's note, clarification and source notes, and a bibliography complete this out-of-this-world picture-book biography. betty carter (c) Copyright 2015. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Young Carl Sagan looks endearingly like his grown-up self, with expressive dark eyebrows and a cheerful look of inquiry, in this warm account of the life of the notable scientist. Sisson captures an important moment in young Sagan's life. In a library, where he has been handed a book on stars, "Carl's heart beat faster with every page he turned." The next double-page spread offers a vertical orientation and a gatefold opening skyward, as if Carl himself were soaring into space. He imagines extraterrestrial life and space travel among the planetsand though he can't wish himself to Mars, he finds a way to get there in spirit. The text sums this up with brevity: "He studied life and space and became / Dr. Carl Sagan." Sisson's economical narrative and lighthearted illustrations convey Sagan's regard for the power of imagination and his generous approach to knowledge. She includes the accomplishments for which Sagan will be remembered: his passion for science and space discovery that he shared with the world through his television appearances and the creation and launching of space missionsin particular the Voyager probes, with their recordings of Earth sounds and sights. Abundant backmatter (oddly missing Sagan's birth date) is compactly delivered in a two-page spread with a list of quotations and sources, a bibliography/resource list and an author's note. Both friendly and inspiringjust like its subject. (Picture book/biography. 4-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
