Reviewed by Betsy Bird Review Source: School Library Journal Book Author: The gutsy girl is a conundrum in children’s books. She seems so easy to conjure up. Writing a bit of historical fiction? Surely all you have to do is just give your heroine some feisty comebacks and historically accurate inequities and the audience will be […]
Wings of an Eagle: The Gold Medal Dreams of Billy Mills
Reviewed by Debbie Reese Review Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Book Author: I spent several hours over the last two weeks, watching the 2024 Olympics. Part way in, I saw that Billy Mills was there. He was sharing photos to his Facebook page. I pulled up the video of his race and shared it […]
Rez Ball
Reviewed by Debbie Reese Review Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Book Author: Earlier this month, I was in San Diego at the California Indian Ed for All 2023 Summit. I was invited to give a presentation about children’s books. During that trip I was reading an advance copy of Rez Ball by Byron Graves. At […]
Contenders: Two Native Baseball Players, One World Series
Reviewed by: Debbie Reese Review Source: American Indians in Children’s Literature Book Author: A few years ago, I would do tweet reviews and sometimes, I’d use a platform (Storify) that would gather the tweets into a single document, and then I’d plop that document in a blog post. People liked that tweet-review-turned-into-blog-post a lot. But […]
A Little Piece of Ground
Reviewed by Edi Campbell Review Source: Cotton Quilts Book Author: I first heard about A Little Piece of Ground back in 2006 at a dinner in Jeddah. It’s only fitting that I found out about this book on that trip because it’s when I really began to put a face on Palestine, to understand that real people were affected […]
The Banana-Leaf Ball
Reviewed by Breeanna Elliott Review Source: Africa Access Book Author: Although the value of collaborative play to overcome conflict is highlighted throughout the book, The Banana-Leaf Ball may reinforce the stereotype of Africa as overwhelmed by unexplained warfare and riddled with refugee camps. The story begins when the protagonist, Deo Rukundo, suddenly has to flee his family home […]