Ellen Labrecque

First sentence: On December 30, 1942, two days before the new year, a slender singer walked onto the stage of the Paramount Theatre in New York City. Over three thousand fans--mostly teenage girls--shrieked and screamed in excitement. Some cried tears of happiness.

Premise/plot: Who Was Frank Sinatra? is part of a larger--much larger--series of kid-friendly biographies. This is an illustrated chapter book biography--elementary-aged-appropriate--of Frank Sinatra, singer and actor. The book provides a biography of his life, obviously, but also places that life into a larger context. This one includes many mini-biographies of his contemporaries and associates.

My thoughts: Do kids need to know who Frank Sinatra was? Maybe. Maybe not. My introduction came via the musical High Society. So it was a delight that the illustrator includes an illustration of a movie scene from High Society. It covers his life and career in a very broad kid-friendly way. You don't necessarily associate details of his life with young kids, young readers. I do love his music and some of his movies.… (more)

The WhoHQ books have popular for quite some time now and while I read a handful of the biographies, I had not previously read any of the others in the series, namely What Is/What Was, Where Is, and What Is the Story Of. I was particularly intrigued by these last ones because I didn't know what to expect. And when I saw that there was a newly published What Is the Story of Anne of Green Gables? out at the same time I've been working on re-reading that entire series (childhood favorites), I clearly had to check it out.

This title does give some readers' digest versions not only of Anne of Green Gables but of other titles in the ongoing story of Anne Shirley. It also talks about the impact of the book, from the hyperlocal (such as tourists flocking to Prince Edward Island to see Anne's world and the government of Canada creating a national park out of the house that was the inspiration for Green Gables) to the worldwide (such as Polish soldiers all getting copies of Ania z Zielonego Wzgórza to remind them of the values worth fighting for and Japanese schoolchildren having Anne of Green Gables being a part of their curriculum).

But more than anything, this book serves as a biography of Anne Shirley's creator, the author L.M. Montgomery, known to her family and friends as Maud. Readers learn many facts about Maud, including her lifelong habit of writing in a journal and her persistence in repeatedly sending off the manuscript for Anne of Green Gables despite multiple rejections from publishers.

Throughout the book, little sidebars of historical context are included, from a mini biography of Mark Twain to an explanation of the atomic bombing of Japanese cities at the end of World War II. These are always tied back into Anne of Green Gables and why the story has had the impact it has over the years, generating new fans and expanding into different media, including television and plays.

I could see this book being useful to folks who don't necessarily want to read the entire Anne of Green Gables series but want to know more about this popular touchstone. I could also see fans of the series wanting to pick this up to learn more about the beloved series' author and its journey from idea to publication.… (more)