George Washington Carver: In His Own Words
*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--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.