A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
Levine Querido
(pub.4.4.2023) 56 pages
Author: Kristen Mai Giang
Illustrator: Dow Phumiruk
Characters: Kristen Mai Giang's family
Overview:
" On April 24, 1975 the last flight out of Saigon, Vietnam carried over 400 people to the United States, six days before Saigon’s surrender to the North Vietnamese Army.
Kristen Giang was a little girl, on that flight with family, and here in this story she shares all the emotions of the decision to flee from the perspective of someone eight years old; Playing a game of space-explorers to protect herself and her sister’s eyes from tear gas; sneaking a stuffed animal into the family’s overstuffed suitcase for comfort.
Dow Phumiruk’s tender illustrations let anyone feel the excitement and the ultimate hopefulness of this amazing true story."
Tantalizing taste:
" Our last night we slept at Ba's work.
Buses would take us to the airport in the morning.
We huddled and hid by a metal desk. I helped the little ones stay quiet.
So no one would hear us, and stop us from leaving.
The next morning, I watched through the window as Saigon rolled away.
Everything I ever knew."
And something more: Kristen Mai Giang in the Author's Note explains: "This is the story of my family's escape ... It wasn't until decades later that I discovered we were on the dramatic last commercial flight out.
The experiences are cobbled together from memories relayed by my parents... my sister... Allan Topping... additional flight crew and personnel, and other accounts of the flight and the war in general...
The historic details of the flight itself and the events leading up to it are true. Ultimately, I wanted to highlight what seemed to me the real miracle of this story - the simple and sometimes stunning ways people choose to help each other."
Touching dedications: Kristen Mai Giang:
"For my sister Linh, who gave me this story.
For Mom and Dad, who gave us everything.
For Allan Topping and the flight crew, who gave us a chance."
Dow Phumiruk (who's also the amazing illustrator of our MAYA LIN: Artist-Architect of Light and Lines):
"For refugee families, past and present.'"
Josephine Cochrane's Bright Invention
Makes a Big Splash
A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
Calkins Creek
(Astra Books for Young Readers)
(pub.3.14.2023) 40 pages
ages 7-10
Author: Kate Hannigan
Illustrator: Sarah Green
Character: Josephine Cochrane
Overview:
" Many Americans have a dishwasher in their kitchen. But who invented it?
Meet Josephine Garis Cochrane: entrepreneur, innovator, girlboss. Washing dishes is a pain—it leaves Josephine's cups cracked, her dishes dinged, and her chowder bowls chipped. She’d rather be picking flowers, frosting cakes, or playing piano than dealing with cracked crockery. What to do about a chore that’s icky, destructive, and time-consuming? Josephine tackles this task the modern way: she makes a machine to do it for her! She tinkers and tests, and perseveres through fizzles and flops—until she has a government patent for her invention, and there are whirring, whizzing, bubbling dishwashers making a splash across America
Tantalizing taste:
" In the 1870s and '80s, inventors were hard at work.
Margaret E. Knight built a machine to produce paper grocery bags.
Thomas Edison was tinkering with the electric light bulb.
Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone.
And Sarah E. Goode was building a bed that converted into a desk.
Josephine's blood also pumped with an inventive spirit. Her father, John Garis, had conquered raging rivers by building bridges. Her great-grandfather, John Fitch , had mastered water travel by designing steamboats.
She wanted to triumph over water, too."
And something more: Kate Hannigan in the Author's Note shares quotes from Josephine: "'If I knew all I know today when I began to put the dishwasher on the market, I never would have had the courage to start,' Josephine said looking back on her career. 'But, then, I would have missed a very wonderful experience.'"
How Sarah McBride Became America's
First Openly Transgender Senator
A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
Crown Books for Young Readers
(Penguin Random House)
(pub.35.9.2023) 4o pages
Author: Meeg Pincus
Illustrator: Meridth McKean Gimbel
Character: Sarah McBride
Overview:
" As a kid, Sarah McBride dreamed of running for office so she could help people in her community. When her friends asked for bicycles for Christmas, Sarah asked for a podium. Her friends and family encouraged her to follow this path, but there was one problem: they saw Sarah as a boy, and Sarah knew she was a girl. Every night, she’d replay the day in her head, watching how it would have played out if she was able to live as the girl she knew herself to be.
In college, she finally came out as Sarah, and in 2020 she won her election to become a Delaware State Senator, making her the highest-ranking trans political official in the country and a hero to kids everywhere who want to live their dreams and be themselves!"
Tantalizing taste:
" Each day of her [college] presidency, Sarah worked hard ... as the young man everyone saw her as.
But each night, to be able to sleep at all, she had to imagine her entire day again ... as the young woman she really was.
The homesick feeling had only grown inside her, like a big dark cloud swallowing the sun.
She was doing the work that she'd dream of as a child. But still she cried and prayed to wake up as herself."
And something more: Meeg Pincus in the Author's Note explains that "Reading about Sarah in our college alumni magazine in 2012 broke open something in my heart. I was so moved by, and proud of, the campus embracing her. I also realized that, as a cis woman, even though I'd studied gender in graduate school and was working for gay rights, I really didn't know about trans experiences. So I began reading all the life stories I could find from trans authors. I saw common feelings within different lives, and a long history of our culture erasing and harming trans people...
"When we hear someone's story, feel their heart - in life or through a book - it becomes hard to fear or dehumanize them... Diverse children's books can open space for learning and healing, for compassion and cooperation. They can make us less afraid, less alone, more connected. They can change, even save, lives."
I had the privilege of attending The Writing Barn virtual book launch of Door by Door and Senator McBride and her mother attended. And as Meeg Pincus said, she was grateful Sarah could join and have everyone hear how eloquent and amazing she is.
