Beneath a heavy cover studded with “rubies” and other “gems,” the diary of one of Cleopatra’s handmaids offers a look at Ptolemaic Egypt’s last years. Interspersed with comments about cats, the court and life in Alexandria, ten-year-old Nefret’s chatty record of Cleopatra’s successive intrigues with her husband/brother Ptolemy, Julius Caesar and later Marc Antony ends partway through. Then Geras switches to third person to trace Cleo’s later life and to cover a series of related topics, from Egyptian people and gods to the Roman army. Robertson’s paintings range from busy Alexandria street scenes to a view of Caesar’s bloody corpse, and are populated with natural-looking, sometimes humorous figures, including a glimpse of Nefret “walking like an Egyptian.” Capped by photos of the pyramids and Egyptian artifacts, this mix of fact and fancy isn’t exactly seamless, but it does introduce one of history’s heroines and brings her era to life in a reasonably accurate way. (glossary, index) (Historical fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-753-46025-2
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Kingfisher
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2007
Prose poems celebrate the feats of young heroines, some of them famous, and some not as well-known. Paul (Hello Toes! Hello Feet!, 1998, etc.) recounts moments in the lives of women such as Rachel Carson, Amelia Earhart, and Wilma Rudolph; these moments don’t necessarily reflect what made them famous as much as they are pivotal events in their youth that influenced the direction of their lives. For Earhart, it was sliding down the roof of the tool shed in a home-made roller coaster: “It’s like flying!” For Rudolph, it was the struggle to learn to walk without her foot brace. Other women, such as Violet Sheehy, who rescued her family from a fire in Hinckley, Minnesota, or Harriet Hanson, a union supporter in the fabric mills of Massachusetts, are celebrated for their brave decisions made under extreme duress. Steirnagle’s sweeping paintings powerfully exude the strength of character exhibited by these young women. A commemorative book, that honors both quiet and noisy acts of heroism. (Picture book/poetry. 6-9)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201477-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
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BOOK REVIEW
Ringgold’s biography of Rosa Parks packs substantial material into a few pages, but with a light touch, and with the ring of authenticity that gives her act of weary resistance all the respect it deserves. Narrating the book is the bus that Parks took that morning 45 years ago; it recounts the signal events in Parks’s life to a young girl who boarded it to go to school. A decent amount of the material will probably be new to children, for Parks is so intimately associated with the Montgomery Bus Boycott that her work with the NAACP before the bus incident is often overlooked, as is her later role as a community activist in Detroit with Congressman John Conyers. Ringgold, through the bus, also informs readers of Parks’s youth in rural Alabama, where Klansmen and nightriders struck fear into the lives of African-Americans. These experiences make her refusal to release her seat all the more courageous, for the consequences of resistance were not gentle. All the events are depicted in emotive naive artwork that underscores their truth; Ringgold delivers Parks’s story without hyperbole, but rather as a life lived with pride, conviction, and consequence. (Picture book/biography. 5-9)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-689-81892-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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PERSPECTIVES
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