This book is an illustration of this song. To be more specific it’s an illustration of the first stanza in the song, the break, and the chorus. The words are nothing surprising, but the illustrations are. I like the illustrations, but they seem very country music when Sweet Child of mine is very much a rock song. It does have music at its heart, but with the emphasis on the fairgrounds and the cowboy boots, and the cowboy hat, it just doesn’t seem to match with what this song is. I love this song. I can sing it all, and maybe that’s my problem. Because I want this book to be better. Why not do the entire song instead of just the “where do we go now” and the “oh sweet child of mine”. There’s more to this tale and unfortunately this book does not do it justice. 

 

This is an interesting book. The story is a simple one that’s a call to action. It states that we need justice. Sometimes justice is denied but one voice or many voices can bring justice where it’s needed. What really sets this book apart are the illustrations. Each page is a different person or a event in our nations fight for various forms of justice. Some of the people mentioned are big names most people know, and some are smaller names, or names lost in history. This book was very well done and very interesting. It could be in a library for many years to come. 

 

I want this book to be better. Ruth Krauss is a pillar of the children’s book community. Her books are strange and interesting, but her beloved books are still in print. This book tries to take her story and use her style, but it comes out a mishmash. What one hopes to be a biography is more of a headache. There was more to learn in the after notes of this book then was within the story itself. The illustrations are lovely and old fashioned, and they fit the theme of the book, but overall I find there’s nothing probative in this work or memorable either. 

 

Marvelous Mabel was a figure skater. While little is known of the first part of her life, we do know it was hard. She had a desire to learn to ice skate, but many doors were closed to her because she was not born white. But this little girl never gave up! She became one of the first black women ever inducted into multiple skating Hall of Fame’s because her love of the sport knew no bounds. When the doors closed on her competing, she became a coach. She coached anyone because everyone should have opportunities. 

 

This book is heartbreaking. This is the true story of a young woman not much more than a kid herself, who rode her bike and carried a wooden duck around occupied France to help free Jewish people. This book does take literary license, but the author has made sure to include resources and full notes with pictures of actual items, and the reasons why the author chose to bring this story to light. The story shows children not just the horrors of the time, but that you were never too small to do something. There is always some way to help, even if that is just passing papers in a wooden duck. This book is fantastic, and I hope it stays in libraries for many decades to come. 

 

This looks like it’s a picture book but it’s much more than that. This is a children’s dictionary on pronouns, and how people identify. The part geared toward children is easy to understand as well as interesting and informative. In the back, there is useful information for both kids and adults such as other books to read, a list of different pronouns that go beyond the he/she. It’s also gives a glossary of terms mentioned in the story, and terms not mentioned in the story that kids may hear. My favorite thing in the book is sample letters in the back for the teacher, or for other parents, making it easy to help explain your child’s pronouns. This is a well done and important book for any collection. 

 

This is a great entry into the life of Gloria Steinem. Many people know her name but nothing about her life. This book \ is full of interesting tidbits. Particular to this book, the information in the very end is different than what you see in the story, giving more insight to this woman’s life. Overall, this addition is well done and insightful. 

 

This volume of the series is decently done. We get the basic overlay of Prince and his life. I love how this book celebrates his uniqueness and his belief in the masculine and feminine converging. One of the things that’s very important to Prince’s stories are the heartache, and none of that is in here. While they do get into the fact that he was a symbol, there’s nothing about why, and this could be done with a one sentence explanation. And I wish that this book series didn’t always look at just the good but admitted that these wonderful powerful people also had bad times. 

 

This time Little People Big Dreams hit it out of the park with their story on RuPaul. The things the story does right is that it’s entertaining and it’s modern. They keep the pronouns moving depending on which RuPaul they are talking about whether the man or the drag queen. I do wish they had taken the time to explain what drag was instead of just saying they were the best drag queen. Overall, this book is highly successful, and it feels like RuPaul would be proud of what is in these pages. Since this is a person who is modern and still living, the pictures in the back would have been better if they were in color like they naturally are. 

 

This story glosses over so much of Harry Houdini‘s life. It’s a picture book so it’s not meant to be in depth, but every point is given at most two sentences. This book would’ve been better if they focused on one or two things instead of trying to put his life on 32 pages. There are other books, especially picture books about Houdini. All of them are done better.