*Starred Review* In the latest standout biography by Coretta Scott King Honor author Bolden, the writer’s expressive powers marry to a truly fascinating subject, the slave-born black scientist whose affectionate nicknames included “the Wizard of the Goober and the Yam.” Bolden provides the requisite biographical details, including Carver’s early, tragic separation from his mother, but also traces themes of his career, drawing connections between his kind masters’ waste-not values and his future devotion to finding new uses for farm by-products. Offering sourced quotations throughout, Bolden covers subtleties that simpler treatments tend to bypass, such as Carver’s trepidation about leaving the mostly white Midwest to join Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute. Directly and indirectly, Bolden also addresses criticisms of Carver for his lack of political activism: the mild-mannered researcher, Bolden writes, “was his own unique self with much to offer from his insights . . . into nature’s ways and gifts.” Photos and reproductions, many of Carver’s own paintings, are exceptional, and their arrangement in the style of an old-fashioned album lends the book a suitable gravitas. A selected bibliography closes this absorbing look at a man whose celebration in a traveling exhibition, launching this month at Chicago’s Field Museum (a partner in this book’s publication), will draw extra attention to both the Peanut Man and this fine portrait. Grades 3-6. --Jennifer Mattson
About the Author
Tonya Bolden has written more than twenty books for children and adults. Her book Tell All the Children Our Story: Memories and Mementos of Being Young and Black in America was named a Best Book of the Year by School Library Journal. Her Wake Up Our Souls: A Celebration of Black American Artists received a starred review in Booklist magazine. Maritcha: A Nineteenth-Century American Girl was named a YALSA Best Book for Young Adults, an ALSC 2006 Notable Childrens Book, a NAPPA Gold Award Winner, a CCBC Best Book of the Year, a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age, and a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. She lives in New York City.
