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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | J 970.00497 RAP | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
A dedicated doctor drives her horse through a blinding snowstorm to tend a child sick with pneumonia.An athlete, lagging behind, pumps his arms and flies past his competitors in the 1,500-meter race, to win an Olympic gold medal.In a tangled jungle in the South Pacific, an American marine baffles Japanese codebreakers with an ingenious code based on the Navajo language.Susan La Flesche Picotte, Jim Thorpe, and William McCabe are just three of the distinguished American Indians you will meet in this book- Acclaimed author Doreen Rappaport re-created one dramatic moment in each person's life to give you a glimpse of their incredible accomplishments. Each portrait has been thoroughly researched and is beautifully evoked by noted artists Ying-Hwa Hu and Cornelius Van Wright.Beginning with Tisquantum teaching the Pilgrims how to survive in a new land and ending 370 years later with Sherman Alexie writing a poem, this book provides young readers with a fresh, exciting first took at the great history and culture of American Indians.
Author Notes
Author Doreen Rappaport is well-known for her groundbreaking approach to multicultural history and literature for young readers. In her many award-winning books, she brings attention to not yet celebrated Americans, along with more well-known figures. She and her husband divide their time between New York City and a rural village in upstate New York.
Cornelius Van Wright and Ying-Hwa Hu have illustrated many distinguished picture books. The couple lives with their daughter and son in New York City.
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-4-In 13 double-page chapters, 16 people are brought to light. One incident from each person's life is re-created, giving a quick, snapshot-style view of the individual's contribution to the world. Arranged in chronological order, the profiles begin with Tisquantum, known also as Squanto, and close with Sherman Alexie, a Navajo poet and novelist born in 1966. Students might be familiar with a few subjects (Maria Tallchief, Wilma Mankiller, Sacajawea, Jim Thorpe), but most will be new. The text is large, and sentences are accessible to emerging readers. Each section is uniform-a colorful painting depicting the scene takes up a little over half of the spread, with the narrative beside it. There is some fictionalizing-Ko-watsi'tsi-ni's "-knees trembled as she walked toward the door"-but it is limited and does not detract from the overall worth of the title. The biographies are too short for reports but will spark children's interest. This title is perfect for Native American units.-Anne Chapman Callaghan, Racine Public Library, WI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
Single-page vignettes describe sixteen important Native Americans including Jim Thorpe, Maria Tallchief, Squanto, and Molly Brant, by re-creat[ing] one moment in [that] person's life. The brief text provides a sense of the diversity of accomplishments but is rather superficial. Each biographical sketch is illustrated with a handsome watercolor portrait. Bib. From HORN BOOK Spring 2003, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Thirteen distinguished American Indians, from Tisquantum and Sacajawea to Wilma Mankiller and Sherman Alexie, are profiled here. In three or four brief paragraphs, Rappaport (No More!, p. 49, etc.) imagines a vivid scene for the reader ("Osceola fell backward. His rifle fell to the ground. He clutched his shoulder. It felt like burning") and introduces the person and their achievements in a few sentences. Her prose is straightforward and precise-though it occasionally becomes halting, as she avoids clauses and compound sentences. The text, on one-third of each spread, is accompanied by a bright, attractive watercolor illustration that helps set the scene. Birth and death dates, Indian and English names, and tribe are given at the head of each spread. Useful endmatter includes a pronunciation guide, separate lists of research sources and suggested books, and Web sites for young readers (with works by Native authors marked), as well as notes from the author and illustrators on their research process. Rappaport gives examples of the type of works she looked at in order to imagine or recreate her scenes. Her coverage of each person is so brief that this won't be useful for reports, but it might be used as a browser by students, or for teachers to introduce a unit. (Nonfiction. 6-10)
Booklist Review
K^-Gr. 3. From Tisquantum and the Pilgrims to a Navaho code-breaker in WW II to contemporary writer Sherman Alexie, this collective biography introduces 13 famous Native Americans from several nations. For each profile, there is a page of brief text opposite a handsome watercolor painting. Although the author and artists provide full notes about their research and discuss the difficulty of finding facts without written records and photographs, their solution of "recreating one moment" from each person's life often blurs fact and fiction and is decidedly unsatisfactory as a model for kids' own research and critical thinking. The imagined episodes are most useful when there is direct information available, as in the description of Maria Tallchief's performance of the Nutcracker. But then why not just use direct facts and quotes for people like Tallchief and the Cherokee leader Wilma Mankiller, who have written first-person accounts? After each imagined moment, there is a very brief biographical note; that and the source notes and Web sites to further research, as well as the fine illustrations, will make this useful, especially since there is so little else available on the subject for this age group. --Hazel Rochman
Table of Contents
| Tisquantum | p. 4 |
| Konwatsi'tsienni | p. 6 |
| Shunka-Ishnala | p. 8 |
| Sacajawea | p. 10 |
| Asiyahola | p. 12 |
| Susan La Flesche Picotte | p. 14 |
| Helena Conley, IDA Conley, Lyda Conley | p. 16 |
| Watha Huck | p. 18 |
| Maria Martinez, Julian Martinez | p. 20 |
| William McCabe | p. 22 |
| Maria Tallchief | p. 24 |
| Wilma Mankiller | p. 26 |
| Sherman Alexie | p. 28 |
| About This Book | p. 30 |
| Pronunciation Guide | p. 31 |
| Research Sources | p. 31 |
| Books and Websites for Young Readers | p. 31 |
