Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds

Review
By Horn Book Guide

With their textured effect, Dom Lee’s scratchboard illustrations (using beeswax, acrylic, oil paint, and colored pencil) convey immediacy – one can feel the prickliness of the sand or heat of the California sun – while the brown and gold colors and sepia tones make it clear that these are past events. An author’s notes gives additional biographical details. Yoo smoothly incorporates the historical context through Sammy’s reactions to pervasive racism. She creates a picture of a person who succeeded through determined hard work – not a larger-than-life hero, but an ordinary person of great achievement.