Janet Pascal

The Who Is/Who Was series of biographies is extremely popular amongst its target audience of middle grades students. These books are constantly flying off the shelves at our library, so I became interested in reading some. To evaluate how good they are, I've read some on subjects I knew a fair amount about beforehand and others on subjects I was unfamiliar with for the most part. This title fits into the latter category as the only remotely biographical information I knew about Maurice show more Sendak came from a series of interviews he did with Stephen Colbert not long before his death.

So this book definitely was a learning moment for me. In addition to not having much biographical background on Sendak, I had only ever read his Where the Wild Things Are and none of his other works. As much of this book talks about the different titles he wrote and/or illustrated (including how parts of his life influenced those works), I was inspired to track down and read several more of his books. Knowing the stories behind his books was incredibly fascinating. For instance, Sendak's beloved and famous work originally grew out of him liking the title Where the Wild Horses Are, but he realized his skill at drawing horses was not quite what he wanted it to be.

This book is straightforward and factual about Sendak's life, noting how and why some of his books were controversial. It also doesn't shy away from mentioning that Sendak was homosexual, which I'm glad to see wasn't passed over to appease a small but vocal contingency that still objects to even acknowledging such relationships exist (especially letting children know this). The book makes liberal use of quotes from Sendak derived from his various interviews over the years, my favorite quotation being, "The best illustrated books ... are the books where the text does one thing and the pictures say something just a little off-center of the language, so they're both doing something ... The most boring books are where the pictures are restating the text."

Backmatter includes a timeline and bibliography. show less

I thought this informal text book was quite good. The first thing I liked was that it included separate boxed pages to clarify terms and explain important figures of the time period. For example of page 8 it explains what prohibition was, "In 1920, the United States government made it illegal to sell alcoholic drinks." Other examples are describing Wall Street on page 12 and FDR on page 66. I also like that the book included 16 photographs at the end to show what life was really like. One show more photograph is "Dorothea Lange's famous photo of a migrant mother." Overall this book explains the troubling times known as the Great Depression and makes it understandable to the younger generations. show less

I liked this book several different reasons, but mostly for how it truly demonstrated the offbeat, fun-loving personality of Dr. Seuss along with his passion for writing children's literature. The book was thoughtfully set up to grab reader's attention by first explaining his outrageous youth and then continued on to discuss the impact his career had on the literary world. This biography consisted of beautiful black-and-white illustrations throughout and brought this amazingly gifted show more author/illustrator to life. This is a great read for anyone who has loved the stories and rhymes of Dr. Seuss. show less

This is a great biography book about our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln. It begins in his childhood life growing up on a farm to his rise to presidency where he guided the nation through the civil war and saw the abolition of slavery. It talks about how he was tragically shot at Ford’s Theater, the first president to be assassinated. There’s plenty of illustrations in this small chapter book including maps. Based on reading level this is probably for 2nd graders and up. This is one book show more from an entire series of biographies from other presidents, to athletes, to important historical figures. These books are great for kids to read or even to read in class as they teach a lot and can connect to different topics that may be being taught. It’s a great extension for kids to collect a better understanding of something that may even have been only talked about briefly and they are interested in learning more! show less