Dorothy Dandridge

June 1, 2011
Grades 6-9 Part of the Essential Lives series, this volume profiles the life of gorgeous, gifted, and gutsy actress Dorothy Dandridge. Drawing on Dandridge's own posthumously published autobiography, Herringshaw details Dandridge's life from her broken childhood home in Cleveland, through her adolescence performing in churches and circuses, to her big break in Hollywood. Although the book's photographs sometimes seem a bit irrelevant and divorced from the story line, Dandridge's life reads much like a screenplay. Herringshaw covers Dandridge's mother's same-sex abusive relationship, her bouts of drug abuse and occasional overdoses, and her daughter's mental-health problems and eventual institutionalization. Students will be captivated by Dandridge's guts and by the naked hypocrisy of the segregation that she faced even as a movie star. Dandridge's life as presented in this volume, though stormy and imperfect, provides invaluable lessons about questioning the status quo and agitating for positive reform.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2011
These series entries, with straightforward writing and frequent sidebars, vary in quality. Hitler contains some startling generalizations (e.g., "European citizens were becoming indifferent to the plight of the Jews"); Guevara includes two stills from The Motorcycle Diaries, despite plenty of other available images. Rockefeller is bland but generally informative, and Dandridge's rather sensational life experiences are handled in a refreshingly matter-of-fact way. Reading list, timeline, websites. Bib., glos., ind.

(Copyright 2011 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)