Starred Review ALA Booklist

Starred Review The song America the Beautiful gets a striking treatment from illustrator Gall, who opens with an introduction to the words, which were written as a poem in 1893 by 24-year-old Bates. The words were set to several different pieces of music, until, finally, a tune, written many years earlier, became the accepted version. Just as those who hear the song feel inspired by the patriotic sentiments, children will be stirred by Gall's pictures. Using hand engraving on clay-covered board and enhancing elements such as color with a computer, he offers a series of pictures resembling woodcuts in form and WPA paintings in style. The images celebrate the history and beauty of the U.S. as they link to the lyrics. God shed His grace on thee is illustrated by a bird's-eye view of a snow-covered town with a church spire in a prominent position. The relatively obscure second verse offers opportunities for artwork featuring immigrants coming to America, and a picture of the Tuskegee Airmen accompanies a line about heroes. A key at the book's conclusion has postage-size reproductions of all the artwork along with brief descriptions. Gall is a distant relative of Katharine Bates; he does her work proud.

Starred Review for Publishers Weekly

In his first picture book, Gall offers an innovative interpretation of this classic paean to our blossoming country, penned in 1893 by his great-great-great-aunt. Finding his own inspiration in this legacy (a copy of the lyrics—reproduced on the book's endpapers—hung in his childhood home), this skilled artist creates striking, boldly hued graphics by hand engraving clay-coated board and then digitizing with Adobe illustrator. Gall blends primitive and sophisticated elements to convey a three-dimensional look. His artwork celebrates the diverse contributions of all Americans. For the refrain, "From sea to shining sea," he depicts Sacajawea and her son traveling the Missouri River with Lewis and Clark in 1805; members of the first African-American flying unit, known as the Tuskegee Airmen, surround their WWII plane for "O beautiful for heroes proved/ In liberating strife." He also includes more recent images, such as the firemen of 9/11 hoisting the flag at Ground Zero for "Who more than self their country loved/ And mercy more than life!" In rural, family scenes, a couple rides a tractor through "amber waves of grain" in the 1930s, and parents and child survey the "purple mountain majesty" of Pike's Peak. This affecting composite portrait of the country Bates so eloquently serenaded provides a spirit-lifting accompaniment to her rousing lyrics. All ages.<EMPHASIS TYPE=""ITALIC""> (Apr.)

Horn Book

All four verses of the beloved song are presented in this well-designed book. Minor's watercolor and gouache illustrations showcase both America's natural beauty (Niagara Falls, Yellowstone National Park) and human-made monuments, including the "Tribute in Light" memorial at the World Trade Center site. One-page biographies of Bates and Samuel Augustus Ward, who wrote the song's music, conclude the book.

Kirkus Reviews

Gall, an actual descendant of Bates, illustrates the four verses of this country's other national anthem with bold, clean-lined, heroic American scenes, from a sturdy rural couple contemplating their "amber waves," to firefighters raising a flag over the ruins at Ground Zero. This broadly idealistic art is infused with a spirit of inclusiveness, as blind Justice towers over a woman in judicial robes, a Tuskegee Airman poses heroically atop his fighter, and in the concluding spread, East meets West in more ways than one at Utah's Promontory Point. Gall's explanatory statements for each illustration precede a musical setting at the end. Pair this uplifting debut with Barbara Younger's Purple Mountain Majesties , illustrated by Stacey Schuett (1998), which focuses on the poem's composer. (introduction) (Picture book/poem. 6-10)

School Library Journal

Gr 1-5-This pictorial salute to the many facets of our country's physical landscapes and historical moments is a good way to introduce young listeners to Bates's 19th-century poem and, through the music of Samuel Augustus Ward, to a classic patriotic song. Following an author's note that clarifies some background information on the poem and Minor's approach to his illustrations, each spread proceeds to feature one to two lines of verse accompanied by an oil painting, rich in color and precise in detail. The art itself tells a story, both in time and space, moving from a pilgrim family's quiet New England town to the roar of a NASA space shuttle, from a solitary farm amid the wheat fields of Kansas to the Manhattan skyline. Readers can trace our country's founding, Westward expansion, Kitty Hawk, and 9/11 (represented by the twin beams of light). Just as importantly, they can see the variety of physical features, from vast oceans to rugged mountains, from unending meadows to quiet streams. Short biographical notes on both Bates and Ward (accompanied by copies of the handwritten poem and the original hymn), four pages of pictorial notes, and a map of the U.S. delineating each illustration's exact location are appended. Unlike Neil Waldman's America the Beautiful (Atheneum, 1993), this version offers all four verses. Use it with primary grades to introduce the song and with intermediate grades to discuss the historical perspective and geographical information behind the paintings.-Nancy Menaldi-Scanlan, LaSalle Academy, Providence, RI Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.