Maya Angelou (Little People, Big Dreams) [Hardcover] [Aug 24, 2016] NA

Little People, BIG DREAMS

by KAISER LISBETH

In the Little People, Big Dreams series, discover the lives of outstanding people from designers and artists to scientists. All of them went on to achieve incredible things, yet all of them began life as a little child with a dream. The book follows Maya Angelou, from her early traumatic childhood to her time as a singer, actress, civil rights campaigner and, eventually, one of America's most beloved writers. This inspiring and informative little biography comes with extra facts about Maya's life at the back.

Genres: Picture Books, Biography, Nonfiction, Childrens, History, African American, Feminism

32 pages, Hardcover

First published August 9, 2016

Reviews

[Hilary · Rating 2 out of 5]

I rated this 2 stars as I didn't feel the book was suited to it's target age group. I didn't know much about Maya Angelou's life before I read this. I have mixed feelings about this series. On one hand they make good starter books on each subject. On the other hand, because they are aimed at the very young lots of details are left out as these would understandably be unsuitable for the very young. Obviously no 2 or 3 yr old wants to hear about hunger strike, cat and mouse, or suicide as a bed time story. Not knowing Maya Angelou's story, when I read that when Maya was 8 yrs old her mother's boyfriend attacked her and she didn't speak for 5 years I feared the worst. Googling Maya's life my fears were correct and I just wouldn't feel comfortable reading this to a small child. The illustration of Maya, frightened, in hospital with her nightdress top pulled open made this even worse. Something to discuss when they are older in my opinion, not as a story with a line or two of text on each page-clearly aimed at the very young, but that's my opinion, of course other people may feel differently about discussing this sort of abuse with small children.

[Manybooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

Albeit that in this here instalment of the Little People, Big Dreams series, while in Lisbeth Kaiser's Maya Angelou, I have actually and surprisingly for me visually rather enjoyed the accompanying illustrations (with Leire Salaberria's pictures, although still a bit too one dimensional and cartoon-like for my general aesthetics, at least being rendered mostly realistic with regard to period accuracy, proportions and facial features), I still cannot and will not grant more than two stars maximum to Maya Angelou.

For honestly, if Lisbeth Kaiser is going to pen and present an introduction to Maya Angelou's life and times (and yes, even if Maya Angelou is supposed to be a basic and general introduction geared to younger children, to the so-called picture book crowd), it is in my opinion still both unacceptable and even a bit insulting to Maya Angelou's memory and her many achievements to only (and to and for me rather casually at that) point out that at the age of eight Maya Angelou was attacked by her mother's boyfriend and that this upset her so much she voluntarily became mute. As indeed, and even considering the intended audience of the Little People, Big Dreams series, for especially Maya Angelou's story, Lisbeth Kaiser absolutely should be pointing out that Maya was at the age of eight sexually assaulted by her mother's boyfriend and no, not simply as is stated in Maya Angelou attacked by him, and this not only because in my opinion, even young children deserve to know the truth and can usually handle the truth if it is portrayed simply and carefully, without exaggeration, but also that since Maya Angelou was always very much publicly open with regard to her life and the horrors and abuse she suffered and experienced as a child, frankly and speaking from a personal point of view, ALL readers of Maya Angelou (including the youmgest) deserve more than to be fed a watered-down pablum of Maya Angelou's life and struggles, deserve more than an on the surface account that really does not depict and present Maya Angelou in full, and what made her what she was, what created not only Maya Angelou the person but later also her multiple careers (and especially her career as an author, for her many struggles, including her being sexually accosted as a young child, were indeed and truly what shaped the multiple thematics of her oeuvre). Therefore and absolutely, I for one have found it rather problematic at best to have the sexual assault angle so totally ignored and swept under the proverbial rug in Maya Angelou, for honestly, this could so easily have been shown by the author in a simple, one sentence and chid-apprpropriate manner (in a way that acknowledges what happened to Maya Angelou as a child without going gratuitously overboard).

[leynes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Apart from reading a short biography about Frida Kahlo, I also read one about Maya Angelou. So far, I've read a chapter of her highly acclaimed fictionalized autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, but something has kept me from seeking out the whole novel, propably the thought of reading about the horrible things she had to go through as a child and young adult. Therefore, this more lighthearted apporach of a children's book suited me extremely well.

Knowing what I already did know about Angelou, I found it fascinating how her being raped as a child was described as "her boyfriend's mother attacking her" and how her time as a sex worker wasn't mentioned at all. These choices are completey understandable since the target group of this children's book are 5-year-olds. Nonetheless, it's always intriguing to see the concept of Who Tells Your Story in full force.

As an adult, you won't learn much from the Little People, Big Dreams-books. Nonetheless, I highly appreciate them for the diverse set of people they showcase and the diverse set of artists who are involved in the project. For instance, in this installment, the artwork from Leire Salaberria completely blew me away. I've never heard of her before but was happy to find her on Instagram and scroll through her feed. Oh, the little things in life.

[Kitty G Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

* I was sent this for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review *

This series aims to inform children about some interesting people who had big dreams and show them that these dreams can be achieved if you try. This particular book focuses on Maya Angelou and I myself didn't know much about Maya before reading this so it was an excellent start point which would be easy for a child to understand.

These books are also all illustrated with lovely artwork and full page spreads. The artwork of this one is a little cartoon-y but it works really well to tell the story and I enjoyed this as a whole book. 3*s recommended if you have children!

[Catherine Barnard-Rivero · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a wonderful, thoughtful gift from one of my students. 🥰

[TheVampireBookworm · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so charming!
I must mention "Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls" as a comparison because that's the only other book of this genre I own and because the idea of the book is the same. I had a big problem with Good Night when it came to language because it was so pretentious and not suitable for the target group. Writing simple sentences with a difficult word here and there just doesn't work for anybody. Not in the way it was put there.
Here, however, the language is perfect for little kids, the artwork works for them, too, and it's just put together well. And as a techer of kids whose first language is not English, I can say it's bearable for teens, too. ;-)

[Vicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want to love it, I feel like I should love it, but the fact is her life story isn't for babies and it irks me every time the book says "she wasn't treated kindly" when what they mean is racism or "she didn't talk much" when what they mean is after she was raped at age 8 she stopped talking for years.

Like, obviously I don't want to read that book to my 9 month old either, but every time I read this book I'm just bothered by the shallowness of the story.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

such a beautiful little book - wonderful illustrations and i love that these non fiction children’s books about strong women exist.

[Chanel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book so much that I plan to have it in my future classroom. This book is a very age-appropriate biography for young children to understand and to gain knowledge about the great Maya Angelou. The illustrations were very colorful and I think that they are a good depiction for children. The illustrations are accurate to the plot and correspond with the text. The characters in the illustrations represent a variety individuals in various cultures. No negative stereotypes were represented, in fact, there was great diversity within the illustrations.

[winda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love biographical illustration :)

Maya Angelou had a dark experience in the past but she believed that "There's nothing she can't be" therefore she had achieve a bright future as a dancer, singer, actress, writer, director, journalist, playwright, producer, teacher and activist for civil right

[Stacie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Knowing Maya Angelou's life so well through her own books, I have to say the author captured the highs and lows in a way that is honest, inspired and kid-friendly. Another very good book in this series.

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love that this is an illustrated biography of such a remarkable woman. However, by simplifying the genre, it sacrifices depth. I know very little about Maya after reading this, unfortunately.

[Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great series of biographies for younger readers! Beautiful illustrations also!

[Jaime · Rating 5 out of 5]

** trigger alert!
I read this book to Julianna tonight. She gives the book 5 stars. She says she likes it because Maya Angelo was a singer and a writer. I liked book but had to change 1 part to read to her as it mentioned Maya had been attacked by her mother's boyfriend when young and for five years did not speak.
I did not know all the struggles Maya had but the book talked about her life, her many jobs in career, her writing, her being an activist. She even read every book in a library. She was such a talented and inspiring woman and how she encouraged others to be what they want to be. She did not give up when discriminated against as a young woman and woman of color. And book said when something aweful happened, she found her voice in poems, writing etc.

[Quinn Rollins · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this entire series of picture book biographies about notable women -- they go beyond the traditional five women every kid learns about in history classes and into women who have achievements across various fields. Each of these has been excellent.

[Markéta Forejtová · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tohle je krásně podaný příběh s nádhernými ilustracemi! A líbí se mi, že na konci je životopis s podrobnějšími událostmi, kde se dají dohledat odpovědi na otázky. Prostě roztomilost ♥
4,5/5*

[Liselotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish this just had a litlte bit more! They took the difficult story of Maya Angelou and made it something even our littlest ones could understand.

[Luce McDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this series of books and Maya Angelou is a true inspiration. I can’t wait to read these beautiful books to my children/nieces and nephews someday.

[Amit Tiwary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Right kind of text for target audience. Clean illustrations. This series of books is so appealing.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

My son and I found these books on YouTube while learning about Black History Month and Women in History Month. They are short, informative and fun to read. Maya Angelou is an inspiring woman of strength, hope and fortitude.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

An introduction to an important person written at a level that is especially appealing to preschoolers/beginning readers. I like the way Angelou's achievements are laid out and that the hard facts of her life aren't overlooked, but I was looking for a little more information about her hardships in the back matter as the write up that supports the timeline reads very similarly to the text.

The back matter also includes a recommended reading list, which is aimed at the same reading level as the text. Colored pencil artwork is simply beautiful. Recommended for PreK-2+.

[Esutterlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

My reaction was mixed. I was glad to see a positive book for younger children about this famous woman, author, poet, entertainer, and recognize it needed to be simplified for the preschool or young primary grades reader. However, the people in the illustrations all looked like too well-rounded and more like homogenized caricatures to me, somehow not seeming authentic as I read it. This is more of a gut reaction than having tested it on any audience or reader.

[MKQ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent series, very clear and easy text with nice drawings & images. It grabbed the kids attention from the first page, they even asked me to read to them 3 days in a row. I highly recommend parents to introduce this series to their kids.

[Shahd Rdawi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love the coloring of this children books’ series ..

[Ben Truong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maya Angelou is book in the Little People, Big Dreams series and is a children's picture book written by Lisbeth Kaiser and illustrated by Leire Salaberria. It is a cursory biography of Maya Angelou from her childhood in Arkansas to her rediscovery of her love for reading and writing to become one of the world's most beloved writers and speakers.

March, at least in my part of the world is Women's History Month, which I plan to read one children's book, particularly a biography, which pertains to the subject everyday this month. Therefore, I thought that this book would be apropos for today.

Maya Angelou (born Marguerite Annie Johnson) was an American poet, singer, memoirist, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credited with a list of plays, movies, and television shows spanning over fifty years.

Kaiser's text is rather simplistic, straightforward, and informative. It starts off with a young Marguerite, nicknamed Maya, and her brother moved from St. Louis to the small town of Stamps, Arkansas to live with their grandmother and found a love in books and eventually become the world's most beloved writers. At the end, there is a concise and informative biography timeline of Maya Angelou's life. Salaberria's illustrations are drawn well, albeit a tad simplistic, but depicted the narrative rather well and apropos to the target audience.

The premise of the book is rather straightforward. It depicts Maya Angelou's childhood in Arkansas during segregation. She managed to rediscover the love and power of her voice when she stopped talking at eight, when she was – well the books says attacked (and rightly so in a children's book) by her mother’s boyfriend. She devoured books as fell in love with the written word and after several career choices and vagabonding around the world, she decided to put pen to paper and write.

All in all, Maya Angelou is a wonderful biography of a little girl that dared to dream big, sacrificed much, and worked hard to accomplish those dreams and became one of the world’s most beloved poets, writers, and speakers.

[Bluebelle-the-Inquisitive (Catherine) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Author: Lisbeth Kaiser
Illustrator: Leire Salaberria
Age Recommendation: Early Primary
Topic/ Theme: Segregation, Equality, Biographic
Setting: America
Series: Little People, Big Dreams

Maya Angelou is one of the original nine LPBD books as such it is a bit different to the more recent entries. It feels more simplistic, it is when the series was still finding its style and it's one of only a handful not written by Sánchez Vegara. Though Kaiser does a good job of writing in a similar style to what Sánchez Vegara was using, making it feel consistent enough. While Maya's story is definitely tied to racism and segregation it doesn't feel like it dwells on it. This is a woman who succeeded despite or maybe in spite of the circumstances around her. Kaiser tells her story well.

I appreciate the colouring and cleanness of Salaberria's illustrations. The colouring isn't realistic but I do like it, realism isn't all it cracked up to be. She has drawn little Maya with such determination in her eyes too, that isn't easy to do. I like the diversity included in the book signing page, a queer couple, a young man in a wheelchair, a girl in punk fashion an older man. Her books are read and studied by many, as is Kaiser's point in the attached wording.  This is also the only page with her book titles on it, for some non-Americans, this is why they are likely to know her name. Something else that Salaberria has done well is age Maya with grace, she ages with each illustration rather than in seeming like it is in spurts. A valuable inclusion for a subject who had such a long career with so many important moments in it.

As something of an aside, when Maya Angelou died in 2014 news network in the US uploaded her speech from Bill Clinton's inauguration On the Pulse of Morning mentioned in the book. Some versions available are better than others, video quality and preservation methods have come a long way since 1993.

[Theediscerning · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the first time that I'm aware of, this series brings out some of their older titles in paperback – freshly reprinted at a better budget, of $9US as opposed to $17US for the current hardback releases. And they've plundered the archive so well that some of the titles aren't even presented by the regular writer and 'show runner' of the whole shebang. Certainly Rosa Parks, from 2017, was authored by someone else. It only felt different to what comes out now because there seemed less in the end-matter (that spread under the period photos that more academically presents the biography of the subject) and the ending was left open.

Rosa crops up too in the Martin Luther King volume, which never gets to the man's death – when these books can finish with a gritty, nasty ending some manage to include it yet many don't. This one ends by telling us that in our hearts we all follow King's credo, perhaps a touch optimistically. Maya Angelou, originally out in 2016 – just two years after the subject passed away – is also here in this initial batch of PBs, as is the one that lets the side down. Muhammad Ali, whatever your opinion of the man and his 'sport', surely deserved better than the horrendous artwork in his volume – almost racist in its cartoonishness, and really a blot on proceedings.

These old titles coming back are going to be welcome to the schools and institutions who needed them still, or who have a smaller budget to replace older, well-worn copies. For well-read, and very easily-read at that, these are. You just wish the art direction had a greater quality control – and in much the same way this series was all about the females for ages, that some non-black subjects had had a look-see in this new reprint campaign. Those surely are to come, though, as this franchise goes from world-beating height to world-beating height.

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoy the Little People, Big Dreams series, but was surprised to learn that some of the earlier books in this series were written by Lisbeth Kaiser. I knew that Maya Angelou was a poet and that she had written I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, but being as I haven't read it yet, I didn't know much else about her life. In this book, we learn that she and her brother moved to Arkansas to live with their grandmother and had to deal with a lot of racism as well as being attacked by her mother's boyfriend when she was only 8 years old. She stopped talking at that time, but was encouraged to read aloud by a friend of her grandmothers and she got her voice back. She believed she could do anything and worked as a streetcar conductor, a singer, a dancer and an actress. Eventually she realized she wanted to be an author and wrote her autobiography. She eventually became a poet and performed her poetry at Bill Clinton's inauguration. She traveled the world and became an activist. As people got to know her, she encouraged them, especially children, to follow their dreams. These child friendly biographies are meant to introduce children to some well known people in all walks of life. They are not detailed, but touch upon how they followed their dreams to achieve what they did. This book definitely reminded me to read her book and there are a couple of books suggested for further study. I do recommend this book to schools and classrooms, especially with February being Black History month, this one is a good choice at this time.

[Jassmine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was nice. As someone who is not American, I didn't really know anything about Maya Angelou, I know she was a writer and that her name keeps popping out when you read about black feminism, but is never really explained, because everyone knows her... well, I didn't. So for me, this was a pretty good.
The illustrations are good, nothing extra, but not bat either. A lot of people have issues with the fact that the rape is called attack and isn't really specified in nature. Or that it's mentioned at all. I actually... I think it was handled well. Considering the intended audience, I think it was a good choice to keep it vague, better than keep it out altogether. From the depicted scene, it's pretty clear something terrible happened to Maya and we see her overcoming that - and sure it would be better if nothing happened to her and if she had a completely happy childhood, but the truth is that so many kids are sexually assaulted by their family member that I think it's good it stayed here and it gives each parent a choice whether to explain or not.
Weirder thing for me was the climax of the whole book, but... that could be because I just don't know the context. Overall this was quite nice.

You can listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGy-J...

[Braelyn Carwile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maya Angelou is a biography illustrating the life and accomplishments of Maya Angelou. It demonstrates her childhood, her early career of being a performer, her activism, and her roles as an author.
I enjoyed this book a lot. I have been reading all the ones in the Little People, Big Dreams recently, and I have really enjoyed them. I like the illustrations and the words are easy to follow but some have some words that could be difficult for early readers. I also enjoy how this book, like the others, have a list of resources about the subject of the book. I think it would be fun to do a series about important women in history (possibly during women's history month) and maybe do a book like this a day. Another option is to assign one of these books to a student and for them to do a research type project where they present their person in a fun way. This book could be a starting point for their research.