An eminently enjoyable biography, not just for hockey fans, but for all who love stories of pioneering women.
Manon Rhéaume breaks the ice and the glass ceiling in this new biography of one of hockey’s trailblazing women.
Though women have been playing hockey for almost as long as the sport has been in existence, for Manon and other girls growing up in the 1970s and ’80s, playing with the boys was practically unheard of. As a young player Manon got her break because the team needed a goalie, and since her brothers always made her play goal at home, she was eager to volunteer. She thrived in the position, becoming the first female to play in the Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament, the first female to play a game in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, and ultimately the first female to play in an NHL game, for the Tampa Bay Lightning in 1992. Along the way Rhéaume also earned championships and Olympic medals with the Canadian National Women’s Hockey Team. Bullaro keeps the pace in this highlight reel of a biography. Payne’s illustrations, despite some anachronistic depictions of modern equipment, truly capture the velocity and scale of hockey and Manon’s unique position in it. With the exception of a couple of journalists of color, the White French Canadian woman is surrounded by White players and fans. Rhéaume herself contributes an afterword. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-17-inch double-page spreads viewed at 20.7% of actual size.)
An eminently enjoyable biography, not just for hockey fans, but for all who love stories of pioneering women. (timeline, additional facts) (Picture book/biography. 6-10)Pub Date: Sept. 22, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-2557-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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
Blandly laudatory.
The iconic animator introduces young readers to each “happy place” in his life.
The tally begins with his childhood home in Marceline, Missouri, and climaxes with Disneyland (carefully designed to be “the happiest place on Earth”), but the account really centers on finding his true happy place, not on a map but in drawing. In sketching out his early flubs and later rocket to the top, the fictive narrator gives Ub Iwerks and other Disney studio workers a nod (leaving his labor disputes with them unmentioned) and squeezes in quick references to his animated films, from Steamboat Willie to Winnie the Pooh (sans Fantasia and Song of the South). Eliopoulos incorporates stills from the films into his cartoon illustrations and, characteristically for this series, depicts Disney as a caricature, trademark mustache in place on outsized head even in childhood years and child sized even as an adult. Human figures default to white, with occasional people of color in crowd scenes and (ahistorically) in the animation studio. One unidentified animator builds up the role-modeling with an observation that Walt and Mickey were really the same (“Both fearless; both resourceful”). An assertion toward the end—“So when do you stop being a child? When you stop dreaming”—muddles the overall follow-your-bliss message. A timeline to the EPCOT Center’s 1982 opening offers photos of the man with select associates, rodent and otherwise. An additional series entry, I Am Marie Curie, publishes simultaneously, featuring a gowned, toddler-sized version of the groundbreaking physicist accepting her two Nobel prizes.
Blandly laudatory. (bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2875-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
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