A poignant, powerful, and insightful collection of voices seldom heard.
Children, teens, and 20-somethings, from all over Gaza Strip and the West Bank, speak in their own voices about their daily experiences of living under occupation.
After explaining what the occupation is and how it affects those living under it, the authors organize the book into chapters by the places they visited: Ramallah, Jenin, Nablus, Qattana, Sebastiya, Gaza, Beit Ur, and Hebron. In each, following some background information, the young people interviewed speak for themselves. Children from Ramallah express their fear of Israeli settlers who sometimes fire bullets at them. A common sentiment is expressed by 20-year-old Muath: “It’s not normal to be a prisoner in your country.” Mohammed, 17, says: “I hate seeing the Wall. It’s wrong; it shouldn’t be there.” Checkpoints and walls are a constant in the lives of Palestinian youth. A 10-year-old in Nablus is one of many who expresses the fear he feels at the sight of an Israeli soldier. What readers will discover is that these young Palestinians want the same things young people want everywhere: a stable family life, the freedom to move about their country, and a safe and secure space in which to grow up. This is these young Palestinians’ story; readers interested in the Israeli perspective will need to look elsewhere.
A poignant, powerful, and insightful collection of voices seldom heard. (photos, maps, timeline, references) (Nonfiction. 12-18)Pub Date: July 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-56656-015-3
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Interlink
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2017
Percy Jackson & Co. have aroused an interest in Classical (Greek and Roman) mythology, making this collection especially timely. In this marvelous re-creation of myth from Ovid, the late Mitchell has rewritten them, as he says in the introduction, “to make them more like themselves.” The language is simple and contemporary, moving from rhyme to free verse to prose and back again. The words are marvelously apropos, describing Bacchus as “all belly and beard” or rhyming “transmogrifications” with “grasshopperations.” All of these stories explore mystery: the origins of flowers, mountains, lakes. Pygmalion, Persephone, Midas and Arachne all appear here. The gods, being lusty and capricious sorts, are allowed the freedom of their appetites. Lee, famed illustrator of Middle Earth, makes men and women, gods and beasts, sea, sky and leaf shimmer on the page. The last image is of a broken helmet and columned ruin next to an open book nestled in a profusion of wildflowers, elegantly echoing (Echo is here, too) the closing lines, “my words will live / while people love them.” (dramatis personae, notes, pronunciation guide) (Mythology. 12 & up)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-84580-536-1
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The “ick” factor is high in this latest title in the Scientists in the Field series describing patient field work, rescue and conservation efforts to save bats. The survival of these valuable but poorly understood nocturnal mammals is threatened by habitat loss, human fears and a mysterious disease. An opening trip with a gas-masked bat expert wading through mounds of droppings in an ammonia-filled cave is followed by visits to a rehabilitator with bats in her barn, a caver who not only researches bats but builds gates to keep them safe in their breeding and winter habitats, a scientist who finds bats under bridges and supervises building bat shelters and finally a night mist-net expedition with a Ph.D. candidate. Though the striking cover shows zoo-dwelling vampire bats from Central or South America, the focus of the text is bat research in this country. Woven into particular researchers’ stories is an enormous amount of information about bat biology and behavior. Uhlman’s photographs are clearly identified in context and the backmatter supports further research. (Learn more, glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 12 & up)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 970-0-547-19956-6
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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