After reading the chapter book about ghosts, I found a book about Volodymyr Zelensky. I figured you cannot get farther apart in subjects, so it was the perfect next read. Now, I will say that while I enjoyed Brave Volodymyr: The Story of Volodymyr Zelensky and the Fight for Ukraine, it is slanted. The start of this picture book was telling us in the most poetic manner how beautiful the Ukrainian flag is. How magnificent. How proud the people of Ukraine are of it. Now, there is nothing wrong with that, but it does set the tone and we know where the authors sympathies are and what they want you to get from things.
Linda Elovitz Marshall’s passion for the country comes from an honest place. Their grandparents came from the country and they have a personal history with the areas and people around there. We get some of the history of the country, their family’s and their personal involvement in their afterwards that also gives us more of the staging of the bigger picture. Their book focuses on Zelensky’s life and how a boy became a scholar, almost lawyer, a husband, a father, a comedian, and actor and finally a president. There were facts I did not know about him (he is an only child, he is Jewish, he is an Aquarius, how he was inspired to run for the presidency), but there is a lot of what happened that we do know, and of course, the main political event of his presidency is also focused on.
This book is nice. There are nice images done by Grasya Oliyko. They are a smidge cartoon-like but not cartoonish. They are colorful and realistic without being overly real or “drawn photographs.” I think they suit things well as they take the edge off of the serious subject of war. Due in a few weeks (early October 2023) I am curious about the final product as I read it via an online reader copy.