Star Child by Ibi Zoboi

This is a biography, writen in prose and free verse, of the science fiction writer, Octavia Estelle Butler.  Ms Butler was born in 1947 in Pasadena California.  Her mother was a domestic servant and her dad was a shoeshiner. Ms Butler was named after her mother, so they called her Juni, short for Junior.  Ms Butler was a shy girl who lived in her own imagination as much as in the real world.  She became fascinated with the science fiction writers like Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury, but was disappointed that all the heroes of the stories she read were white men.  After finishing an associate's degree by going to night school, Ms Butler determined to be a professional writer.  Her first novel was published when she was 24, and she later went one to win many awards, including the Nebula award for outstanding science fiction writing. 

I mostly picked this book because I was expecting another book which was on hold to come in soon and I wanted to choose something short.  This is a children's biography intended to be inspirational, and indeed, Ms Butler's success after rising about disadvantage is very impressive.  There is a lot of reference to world events during Ms Butler's childhood like the cold war, and the space race that are written on a children's level.   The free verse parts of the book are interesting, I guess, but they would have meant very little without the prose sections.  They are more to give a mood than to actually tell part of the narrative.  I think the book is a good choice for a child who is an aspiring writer, especially if he or she is facing some of the same kinds of challenges--poverty, shyness, racial prejudice and dislexia--that Ms Butler overcame. (2022, 128 p)