Kamala Harris: Rooted in Justice

Award-win­ning poet and author Grimes offers a pic­ture book biog­ra­phy of U.S. Sen­a­tor Kamala Har­ris, who became the first female Dis­trict Attor­ney of San Fran­cis­co and lat­er the first Black woman to serve as attor­ney gen­er­al of Cal­i­for­nia. Born in Oak­land, CA, in 1964, Har­ris was exposed to activism at a young age. When she was still a baby, her par­ents brought Har­ris to civ­il rights march­es and lec­tures by Dr. Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Using poet­ic lan­guage and strik­ing imagery, Grimes details the future senator’s life, from her begin­nings to her pres­i­den­tial run in 2020. Freeman’s art­work adds rich details and illu­mi­nates Grimes’s prose. The bright col­ors and back­ground scenes pop on the pages and reflect Harris’s jour­ney. The text focus­es on Harris’s life and career and high­lights the pos­i­tive, inspir­ing aspects of her accom­plish­ments. How­ev­er, Grimes also depicts the strug­gles Har­ris faced, includ­ing per­son­al fail­ures (not pass­ing the Cal­i­for­nia Bar Exam on the first try) and fam­i­ly issues (her par­ents’ divorce at the age of sev­en). A time line and sources are includ­ed in the back mat­ter. VERDICT Penned by word­smith Grimes and vivid­ly illus­trat­ed by Free­man, this is an age-appro­pri­ate depic­tion of a notable fig­ure in Amer­i­can pol­i­tics. A wor­thy addi­tion to children’s biog­ra­phy col­lec­tions. (School Library Jour­nal)