Review: Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker by Patricia Hruby Powell

Josephine by Patricia Hruby Powell

Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker
Patricia Hruby Powell
Illustrated by Christian Robinson
Chronicle Books
Published December 1, 2013

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About Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker

In exuberant verse and stirring pictures, Patricia Hruby Powell and Christian Robinson create an extraordinary portrait for young people of the passionate performer and civil rights advocate Josephine Baker, the woman who worked her way from the slums of St. Louis to the grandest stages in the world. Meticulously researched by both author and artist, Josephine’s powerful story of struggle and triumph is an inspiration and a spectacle, just like the legend herself.

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Review: Reggie and Delilah’s Year of Falling by Elise Bryant

Reggie and Delilah's Year of Falling by Elise Bryant

Reggie and Delilah’s Year of Falling
Elise Bryant
Balzer + Bray
Published January 31, 2023

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About Reggie and Delilah’s Year of Falling

Delilah always keeps her messy, gooey insides hidden behind a wall of shrugs and yeah, whatevers. She goes with the flow—which is how she ends up singing in her friends’ punk band as a favor, even though she’d prefer to hide at the merch table.

Reggie is a D&D Dungeon Master and self-declared Blerd. He spends his free time leading quests and writing essays critiquing the game under a pseudonym, keeping it all under wraps from his disapproving family.

These two, … Continue reading

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books for International Holocaust Remembrance Day

10 Books to Read for International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Top 10 Books for International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Friday, January 27 was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On that date in 1945, the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated. Some of the stories listed here share the lives of some of those who were imprisoned there. Some were imprisoned at other camps. Still others fled their homes in Europe in an attempt to escape the Nazis.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is “freebie”, so I’ve chosen to share some of the books I’ve read or that are still on my reading list that feature stories based on historical events or family history. Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Continue reading

Review: Running for Shelter by Suzette Sheft

Running for Shelter by Suzette Sheft

Running for Shelter
Suzette Sheft
Amsterdam
Published November 9, 2022

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About Running for Shelter

Vienna, late 1930s. Bright, red-headed Inge Eisenger leads a privileged life with her glamorous, distant mother. When forced to flee from Nazi-occupied Austria to Switzerland, Inge sees her young life turned upside down. She hopes to finally connect with her mother during their escape, but her mother soon abandons her. Vulnerable and alone, Inge makes her way to Paris before reuniting with her grandmother in Central France. But even there, Inge endures one hardship after another—all while her grandmother keeps a family secret that, if revealed, could result in their whole family’s … Continue reading

Review: Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelman

Maus II A Survivor's Tale And Here My Troubles Began

Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
Art Spiegelman
Pantheon Books
Published September 1992 (originally published in 1991)

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About Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles Began

Acclaimed as a quiet triumph and a brutally moving work of art, the first volume of Art Spieglman’s MAUS introduced readers to Vladek Spiegleman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist trying to come to terms with his father, his father’s terrifying story, and History itself. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), succeeds perfectly in shocking us … Continue reading

Review: Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman

Maus I - A Survivor's Tale - My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman

Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History
Art Spiegelman
Pantheon Books
Published November 1, 1991 (Originally published in 1986)

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About Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History

The first installment of the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first masterpiece in comic book history” (The New Yorker).

A brutally moving work of art—widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written—Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author’s father during the Holocaust, with … Continue reading