Shaking Things Up

February 5, 2018
Selina Alko, Sophie Blackall, and LeUyen Pham are among 13 woman illustrators whose artwork accompanies Hood’s biographical tributes to trailblazing women, several of whom are far from household names. Multistanza poems do a fine job of encapsulating each woman’s life, and they’re bolstered by quotations, supplementary paragraphs, a timeline, and back matter. “Buried Treasure,” about paleontologist Mary Anning, is a concrete poem that takes the shape of her discovery: an ichthyosaur (the phrase “fabulous flippers” forms one flipper). Swimmer Annette Kellerman, who modernized women’s swimwear, is joined by a mermaid in Emily Winfield Martin’s images (“Who can swim fifty laps/ wearing corsets and caps?” she protests after being arrested for swimming without pantaloons). These encouraging profiles of astronauts, artists, and activists both honor past accomplishments and point toward ways young readers themselves might change the world, too. Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Brenda Bowen, Sanford J. Greenburger Assoc.

March 1, 2018
Grades 3-6 Shake things up is exactly what these 13 girls and women did. Among those introduced in Hood's poems are well-known names?Malala Yousafzai, Ruby Bridges, and Maya Lin?and others who have flown under the radar, like Molly Williams, an eighteenth-century firefighter; Jacqueline and Eileen Nearne, WWII spies; and Angela Zhang, a medical scientist, who at 17 was already doing cancer research. The poems take different forms. Mary Anning, a paleontologist, is discussed in a fossil-shaped poem; the many aspects of Pura Belpr� are delivered in an abece poem where each sentence begins with a succeeding letter of the alphabet; and so forth. Each subject gets a two-page spread with the poem, a brief factual note, and pictures by different illustrators. Sophie Blackall does a particularly good job with Jacqueline Nearne, depicting her as she floats into France in her parachute. Though they can vary in quality, the different artistic styles and the variety of poetry are sure to keep readers' interest. Solid matches for these extraordinary lives.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

April 1, 2018

Gr 3-6-Thirteen spreads profile 14 young women in history. The profiles are arranged chronologically and each has a poem and very brief prose biography on the right-hand side, with a full-bleed illustration on the left. Each spread uses a different poetic form and is illustrated by a different woman illustrator, including Isabel Roxas and Selina Alko. The portraits, which also incorporate a quote from the subject or a primary source, vary in their levels of dynamism, abstraction, and suitability to the person portrayed. Though the poems are all by Hood, they also vary in their success; the alphabet acrostic for librarian Pura Belpr� is charming and makes sense, but limericks for Annette Kellerman seem to make her into a punch line. Many of the people profiled were among the first women or girls to accomplish something; however, the specific challenges faced by women and girls of color are only minimally discussed. The poems can perhaps be used to whet students' appetites for women's history before they delve more deeply into the lives and challenges of individual movers and shakers. VERDICT An additional purchase for elementary history and poetry collections.-Sarah Stone, San Francisco Public Library

Copyright 2018 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2018
Illustrated by Thirteen "Extraordinary Women." Hood writes poems, in various styles, about fourteen young women in history who resisted and persisted--from Molly Williams, first American woman fire fighter (1780s) to activist Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Prize winner (2014). Each spread of this attractive book was created by a different female illustrator, including Selina Alko, Sophie Blackall, LeUyen Pham, and Melissa Sweet. Reading list, timeline, websites. Bib.

(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)