Review by Booklist Review
Using the four verses of "America the Beautiful" as a text, this picture book celebrates the beauty and variety of the American landscape in a series of majestic scenes. Each borderless, double-page spread illustrates a phrase or stanza from the song with a watercolor-and-gouache painting. Just as they represent different places in the country, the paintings also portray different moments in time. Buffaloes graze as smoke rises from a nearby teepee; the Wright brothers' flyer skims above the sand; and two towers of bluish-white light rise above the New York skyline. Minor's richly colored, well-composed paintings reflect the song's grace, dignity, and idealism, but just as impressive is his care in selecting locales that fit the song's phrases. The closing pages offer short biographies of lyricist Bates and composer Samuel Ward, the song's words and music, and an illustrated guide to each spread. A series of landscape paintings (sometimes with figures, but no real characters) may not sound like an inviting approach to a children's picture book, but these paintings are varied and accessible enough to hold a primary-grade audience, especially when the text is sung.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
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. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
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 (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
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. From HORN BOOK Fall 2003, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A pictorial interpretation of Bates' "America the Beautiful." Few will question the aesthetic beauty of Minor's paintings, which employ breathtaking realism to depict a diversity of landscapes in the continental U.S. Minor chooses sites ranging from the "purple mountain majesty" of Grand Teton National Park (first appearing on the front jacket) to a moving illustration for the line "Thine alabaster cities gleam / Undimmed by human tears!" that shows the Empire State Building illuminated in red, white, and blue with twin columns of light in the background. Throughout, Minor also varies his settings between the contemporary era and the past, selectively including people in some art. Unfortunately, herein lies a romanticizing of American history that is reliant on exclusion and erasure. The cover image of the Tetons is reused on the recto of an interior spread and expanded to a facing verso depicting three lone tepees, smoke rising from their tops. Such imagery risks relegating Indigenous people to the past and reinforces the myth of historically sparse Native populations--especially when juxtaposed with a scene of "pilgrim[s]" at Plimouth Plantation and another with a covered wagon moving through Nebraska. A spread with the figures on Mount Rushmore exalted as "heroes… / Who more than self their country loved / And mercy more than life" further whitewashes America's history of settler colonialism and slavery. Both beautiful and deeply flawed, like its subject. (biographical notes, sheet music, key, map) (Picture book. 4-10) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
