Yogi

The Life, Loves, 
and Language of
Baseball Legend
Yogi Berra

Calkins Creek
(Boyds Mill & Kane)
(pub. 2.5.2019) 
 48 pages

A True Tale with
A Cherry On Top   

A uthor:  Barbara Rosenstock

 and illustrator: Terry Widener
 
C haracter: Yogi Berra
O verview: 
     "Lawrence 'Yogi' Berra loved his family, his neighborhood, his friends, and, most of all, baseball. He was crazy about it.
      But baseball didn't love him back - at least not right away. Yogi didn't look like other players. When he finally made it to the Major Leagues, Yogi endured pranks and harassment from players, sportswriters, and fans. Their words hurt but they didn't stop him. Yogi soon became known for playing exceptional ball and talking a good game. Yogi's quirky sayings - his 'Yogi-isms'- became the stuff of legend.
     Barb Rosenstock's dynamic text and Terry Widener's powerful illustrations celebrate the talents, loves, and inspirational words of Yogi Berra who earned a World Series ring for each finger, and who made baseball love him back."

T antalizing taste: 
     "Lawdie loved his coaches. But coaches didn't always love him back. Wait for a good pitch! Don't slide like that! You're gonna fall over, Berra! He took a lot of teasing for his squat body, long arms, and waddling walk. When he wasn't on the field, Lawdie studied the game from the sidelines with his arms and legs crossed. After his friends saw a movie where a yogi sat cross-legged and charmed snakes, Lawdie was called 'Yogi.'

And something more: The back matter includes a wealth of information about Yogi Berra, including a discussion of Yogi's sayings: "Yogi Berra's quotations, or Yogi-isms, are legendary. Original sources for his sayings are notoriously difficult to pin down. Many Yogi-isms seem to be original, but others may have been used by someone else first, then popularized by Berra... Yogi's own memories of what and why he made some remarks changed over time."
      But, as explained in Barbara Rosenstock's Author's Note, "He's the most quoted athlete in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations and among the most quoted Americans of all time."

"You've got to be careful if you don't know where you're  going because you might not get there." - Yogi
 

The Secret Kingdom

Nek Chand, a Changing India,
and a Hidden World of Art

Candlewick Press
(pub. 2.13.2018)

 48 pages

A True Tale with
A Cherry On Top   

A uthor:  Barb Rosenstock
    and illustrator: Claire A. Nivola

C haracter: Nek Chand Saini

O verview from the jacket flap: 

     "As a refugee during the partition of India in 1947, Nek Chand Saini was resettled in the city of Chandigarh with nothing but the stories he carried in his heart from his homeland. Dismayed at the modern new city he now lived in, he began collecting broken glass, cracked water pots, and discarded construction materials.

     In a section of wilderness he cleared himself , Nek Chand built the Rock Garden, full of curving paths, intricate mosaics, and hundreds of sculptures of people and animals, which eventually grew to a thirteen-acre wonderland.  It was his tribute to the village of his youth, a land full of hidden stories."

T antalizing taste: 
      

      "Then on the banks of the village stream, Nek built a world of his own He dug silt palaces and spilled waterfalls, molded clay goddesses and planted stick kinds He found rocks shaped like jackals, monkeys, and geese, and made them pounce, scamper, or fly...

     Nek became a farmer, part of the ancient cycle of changing seasons and shared stories.

     Until the men with guns came."  

 
and something more: In the Author's Note, Barb Rosenstock explains that "Nek Chand is a famous folk artist. Between three and four thousand people a day visit his Rock Garden of Chandigarh, a wonderland built fro recycled materials. The Rock Garden is the largest visionary art environment in the world, now twenty-five acres of art set on a forth-acre site....
     Until his death in 2015 at age ninety, Nek Chand spent each day at home in the Rock Garden meeting with visitors, creating new plans, and supervising the continued constructions of his kingdom."  
     The Secret Kingdom includes a delightful surprise -- gatefold pages featuring a photograph of the Rock Garden.

Dorothea's Eyes

Dorothea Lange
Photographs the Truth

Calkins Creek

(published 3.1.2016)

40 pages

A True Tale

with A Cherry On Top 

A uthor: Barb Rosenstock
and Illustrator: Gerard DuBois

C character: Dorothea Lange
                 

O verview from the jacket flap:

"From the time she was a little girl, Dorothea Lange saw the world with her eyes and her heart. Before she ever owned a camera, she knew she was born to be a photographer. It didn't matter that polio made it difficult for her to walk. It didn't matter that girls weren't supposed to be photographers.
     To take her pictures, Dorothea deliberately blended into the background. She used her phtogorsaphs to tell the stories of the people the world ignored - the homeless, the jobless, the poor.
    In this powerful and inspiring book, Barb Rosenstock and Gerard DuBois reveal the story of Dorothea's remarkable life and illuminate how her photographs continue to tell the world the truth."

T antalizing taste:

   "Dorothea leaves her comfortable life and takes her camera on the road. She scans dirt lanes, peers down back paths, and squints up broken stops. Fathers stoop in fields, working for pennies. Mothers nurse sick children, lying thirsty in makeshift tents. Whole families live in jalopies - blown out by the dust storms wracking the land. 
     Dorothea limps [from childhood polio] toward these hungry strangers. 
     Her heart knows all about people the world ignores."

and something more: I was interested to learn from the back matter of Dorothea's Eyes that Dorothea Lange's "photographs influenced John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath and Lange is listed in The 100 Most Influential Women of All Time by Deborah Felder. Despite decades of ill health from ulcers and post-polo syndrome, Dorothea Lange continued photographing faces - from strangers on five continents to her adored grandchildren - until the end of her life."  And as a San Francisco Museum of Modern Art docent, I am pleased that I can now share more about Dorothea Lange with students who visit the museum and see the photos by Dorothea Lange.

Fearless

The Story of Racing Legend Louise Smith

This post is part of Nonfiction Monday
hosted today by The Children's War


Dutton Children's Books 
(pub. 10.14.2010)
32 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: BARB ROSENSTOCK 
              and Illustrator: SCOTT DAWSON

C haracter: Louise Smith, race car driver

O verview from book flap:
     "When Louise Smith started to race cars, most girls weren't even allowed to drive. Her first wild adventure behind the wheel of her daddy's Model T Ford taught her the thrill of driving fast and the freedom that comes from fearlessly following your heart... 
     Scott Dawson's dynamic paintings capture all the energy and excitement of Barb Rosenstock's text. Together they bring life to one of the true legends in car racing history."


T antalizing taste:

     "Louise drove for eleven years.  She won thirty-eight times.  She was the first woman elected to the International Motorsports Hall of Fame - forty-three years after she stopped racing.
     As Louise got old, walking got harder, but driving never did.  Wearing rhinestone bifocals, sparkly earrings, and hair piled high on her head, Louise pushed her sedan to the limit ...
     FAST!  FASTER!  FLYING!
     FREE!
                                        FEARLESS!" 


and something more:  FEARLESS is another picture book biography to celebrate  Women's History Month.   Louise Smith stopped racing cars for the same reason Tillie Anderson stopped racing bikes (as I talked about in my post about the picture book biography, Tillie the Terrible Swede): women were banned from racing. 
      Barb Rosenstock writes in the Author's Note that "Louise was not only the only woman at the track on those wild summer nights, but there were very few... From the mid-1950s until the mid-1970s, women were banned from the track on the grounds that it was too dangerous for them.  Some still raced in ladies races at small tracks around the country, but usually women were allowed to participate only as beauty queens." 
     It's another reason we need to celebrate Women's History Month -- to remember these women who were pioneers in their fields, but were then banned from pursuing their passion.