Horn Book (Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2009)

Yolen attempts to distinguish mythology from biography regarding the famed apple evangelist. Each spread includes a snippet of a hagiographic poem, some myth-busting information ("The History"), and thumbnail supplemental details ("The Fact," which sometimes includes Yolen's source). Burke's accomplished earth-tone paintings reflect imaginative Johnny's preoccupation with apples, starting in childhood and continuing throughout his life.

Starred Review ALA Booklist (Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2008)

Starred Review With glowing, dramatic double-page spreads and a clear rhythmic text, this large picture book tells the inspiring story of the Montgomery bus boycott. An adult who was there tells a child today how it was in language that has the beat of the blues ary, sharp, and sweet. Dog tired, that's me, says the narrator, who appears in most of the pictures as a dog strumming a guitar. Beginning with Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat on the bus to a white man, the story moves on through history to Martin Luther King Jr.'s inspiring speech calling for a boycott and the many people who join the movement and refuse to ride the buses. This is one of the few Rosa Parks stories to show how long it took to defeat Jim Crow, how exhausting it was for the nonviolent protestors to walk through rain and steaming heat for more than a year, and how determined they were. Jim Crow becomes a metaphorical bird that struts and pecks, though the statement that Jim Crow flew in in 1955 may confuse readers: as the final note shows, segregation was established long before that date. The moving poetry and the art, with thick, swirling ink lines on bright washes in red, blue, purple, and green, express the dramatic confrontations and the inspiring history. Great for reading aloud, especially to the strumming of a guitar.

School Library Journal Starred Review (Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 CDT 2008)

Gr 3-6 Color and movement are vibrant components in this extraordinary book about Rosa Parks's efforts to take down Jim Crow. Text and illustration work in perfect sync. Andrea Pinkney chose the rhythm of the blues as cadence for the guitar-strumming hound-dog narrator: "This story begins with shoes./This story is all for true./This story walks. And walks. And walks./To the blues." In riveting poetic style, the author relates how Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, AL, on December 1, 1955; her defiance brought about the boycott that changed this nation. The evocative text is bolstered by Brian Pinkney's perceptive vision: he portrays a swirling black mass, colored ink on clay board, to simulate a menacing birdJim Crowthat "pecks, pecks, pecks" its determination to undermine the movement. Jim Crow hovers menacingly over the bus and whirls above the beleaguered walkers, but the ever-present dog keeps belting out inspiring words, swinging his tune out over the people. Against electric blues and greens diffused with streaks of black line, Pinkney's artwork rivets the eye with the red of Parks's coat, the yellow of the city bus, and the sunrise red that signals the Supreme Court ruling to end segregation. Children unfamiliar with the historic events of the period will find the tale uplifting and memorable, and for librarians, teachers, and parents, this story will read aloud well, mesmerizing listeners. Barbara Elleman, Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, MA

Kirkus Reviews

Grounded in the events of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, this hybrid of fact and fiction is leavened by a guitar-picking hound dog's blues-imbued narration. "This story begins with shoes. / This story is all for true. / This story walks. And walks. And walks. / To the blues." The oppressive force of Jim Crow laws is evocatively personified both textually and visually. "...Jim Crow flew in waving his bony wings. ...And on that day, it was Rosa Parks who got Jim Crow's peck, peck, peck, right up close." Brian Pinkney's superb ink-on-board illustrations depict Jim Crow's chiaroscuro menace: Gestural, wing-like shapes flail above tense cityscapes. The text conveys the grim determination of the 40,000 participants in the 13-month-long boycott, interweaving 1956's landmark Supreme Court decision with segregation and Dr. King's Montgomery speech on the night of Parks's arrest. Parks's preceding, years-long activism in civil-rights issues is unexamined in both text and author's note, however, continuing an unfortunate silence shared with other treatments of the subject for young children. (author's note, further resources) (Picture book. 5-8)