Who Needs a Statue?

Whose accomplishments are commemorated in a public place, for all to see? Of the 100 statutes that stand in the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., contextualizing text notes, nine represent people of color and 12 represent women. After offering brief biographies of a few (Paiute writer Thocmetony Sarah Winnemucca and Montana politician Jeannette Rankin, among others), LaPlante, making a children’s book debut, and Knight (Africa Is Not a Country) introduce sculptures across the country that immortalize people of color and women. A statue at San Jose State University honors sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who stood on the 1968 Olympic winners’ podium “without shoes as a symbol of poverty” and wearing “beads and scarves around their necks in memory of lynching victims.” A statue in Chicago’s Ping Tom Park represents Judge Laura Cha-Yu Liu, who in 2012 became the first Chinese American elected to public office in Chicago. Thickly stroked paintings by Delinois (Greetings, Leroy) show scenes from the subjects’ lives as well as the statues in their settings, in a reportorial work that opens conversations about public representation. Short biographies of those discussed in the text conclude. Ages 7–10. (Oct.)