Ruby Bridges

Apr 18, 2024 | kirkusreviews.com | Dawn Huebner |Rafael Lopez |Ruby Bridges

Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40. From two Nobel Peace Prize winners, an invitation to look past sadness and loneliness to the joy that surrounds us. Bobbing in the wake of 2016’s heavyweight Book of Joy (2016), this brief but buoyant address to young readers offers an earnest insight: “If you just focus on the thing that is making / you sad, then the sadness is all you see.

Mar 7, 2023 | kirkusreviews.com | Ruby Bridges

THE STORY OF A MEXICAN FREEDOM FIGHTER by Aida Salazar ; illustrated by Molly Mendoza ‧ A young Mexican freedom fighter proves that traditional gender roles aren’t important—heart is. Born in 1911, Jovita Valdovinos was just 14 years old when the resistance that would later become the Cristero Revolution began in her rural community. The newly installed socialist government was cracking down on religious freedom, and many of Mexico’s poor were beginning to fight back.

Feb 21, 2023 | kirkusreviews.com | Nathan Chen |Ruby Bridges |Chris Paul

by Nathan Chen ; illustrated by Lorraine Nam ‧ Champion figure skater Chen tells the story of a young athlete whose first competition doesn’t go quite as planned. In the author’s note, Chen shares that “Wei’s story is my story.” Indeed, Wei is Chen’s Chinese name, and the action of the book tracks with his much-hyped but disappointing turn in the 2018 Olympics, followed by a gold medal win in 2022.