George Washington Carver (review)

Two fresh contenders for the title of Ali Bio Champion enter the ring with markedly different strategies, but neither claims a victory. In an introductory-level picture book, Winter limits his attention to Ali's ascending career and highlights his arrival on the scene as smack-talking Cassius Clay, his 1964 KO of Sonny Liston, his conversion to Islam, his suspension from boxing for refusing Army induction, and his Rumble in the Jungle against George Foreman. The jazzy free-verse narrative style that worked so well in Dizzy (BCCB 11/06) loses its punch here ("He recited poems about how great he was./ He spoke out against racism./ And this made some people mad and very mad"), and his extended quasi-religious metaphor of Ali as boxing's savior and king is overplayed ("And his people held him high/ in their arms, and rejoiced—/. . . And there in the center of Africa,/ they crowned their King"). Roca's oil paintings, though well suited to a young audience in their literal rendering, showcase figures with a waxy stiffness reminiscent of posable action figures. Smith also employs a free-verse approach but offers a more complete and less adulatory treatment of Ali's career, dividing his work into chapters ("rounds") delivered as a second-person tribute. Although an apologist for nearly every excess of Ali's character and career, Smith nonetheless brings some perspective to the "prefight hype [that] turned sinister and ugly" in Ali's first match with Joe Frazier. Lengthy poems, often running to three columns per page, that fall flat on the silent printed page require a buoyant rap-style oral delivery to bring out their music (although some passages like "One/ by one/ by one/ they all fell;/ each time you were victorious/ at the DING-DING of each bell" are probably beyond saving). Collier's watercolor and collage pictures fail to approach his achievement in Martin's Big Words (BCCB 1/02), but their varied angles and dark moodiness offer a satisfying complement to Smith's text. An informative timeline of Ali's career is also included.