A surprisingly comprehensive history of wild horses.
An educational journey about horses that spans history from the Miocene to modern times.
The largely forgotten history of the millions of mustangs that roamed the American West, as well as the activists who set out to save them in the 1970s, is explored in this graphic novel. It’s told a bit like a classroom lecture, with an illustrated horse playing impromptu professor to two stylized figures that look like Keith Haring’s free-figure drawings. The pop-culture pictographs argue in a comical way with the talking horse as it clarifies everything from the origins of horses to the culling that ensued in order to clear the open prairie for farming. With realistic, detailed illustrations of Spanish ships, conquistadors, Native people, bison, and the Pueblo Revolt set alongside the two questioning silhouettes, the comic book employs everything from maps to X-ray images of a horse’s digestive system to get at the big picture of America’s history even as it maintains its focus on horses. The story of early Natives, traders, horse thieves, and settlers gives way to the Wild Horse Act and the Bureau of Land Management horse-adoption program that exists in our country today. While the conquest of America is perhaps attributed too heavily to Hernán Cortés and his horses—excluding any talk of pandemics and lateral violence—the story encapsulated here is impressive for its scope. Sadly, though, the self-referential tendency of the classroom lecture uses too much space.
A surprisingly comprehensive history of wild horses. (afterword, timeline, further reading, appendices) (Graphic nonfiction. 10-16)Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-17427-7
Page Count: 144
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
Here is an adventure in a unique setting. The lively text and lovely watercolors document three and a half months of a summer the artist and author spent at the South Pole, as part of the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists & Writers Program. Hooper describes everyday life aboard the research ship Laurence M. Gould, a sturdy orange icebreaker that scientists use to travel between the islands to study the wide variety of animals who come each year to breed and raise their young. An assortment of penguins, elephant seals, giant petrels, huge skuas, and leopard seals hold center stage. Scientists are less important than the serious business of successfully raising young in the short summer season. The author captures the drama of the ice-cold ocean, alive with life: “Swarms of barrel-shaped blue-tinged salps, stuck together in floating chains. Minute creatures with red eyes. Sliding through the water in a curving path like a ribbon.” The artist provides striking paintings of the landscape and the animals in soft washy colors, and quick pencil sketches. The ice is lemon gold with mauve shadows, and the sea a silver gray in the 24-hour day. Animals are expressive and individual. The krill, the tiny shrimp-like creatures that form the backbone of the ocean food chain, appear in luminous glory. The author concludes with a page on global warming, a map of the islands visited, and an index. From cover to cover a personal and informative journey. (Nonfiction. 7-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7922-7188-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
The author of The Snake Scientist (not reviewed) takes the reader along on another adventure, this time to the Bay of Bengal, between India and Bangladesh to the Sundarbans Tiger Preserve in search of man-eating tigers. Beware, he cautions, “Your study subject might be trying to eat you!” The first-person narrative is full of helpful warnings: watch out for the estuarine crocodiles, “the most deadly crocodiles in the world” and the nine different kinds of dangerous sharks, and the poisonous sea snakes, more deadly than the cobra. Interspersed are stories of the people who live in and around the tiger preserve, information on the ecology of the mangrove swamp, myths and legends, and true life accounts of man-eating tigers. (Fortunately, these tigers don’t eat women or children.) The author is clearly on the side of the tigers as she states: “Even if you added up all the people that sick tigers were forced to eat, you wouldn’t get close to the number of tigers killed by people.” She introduces ideas as to why Sundarbans tigers eat so many people, including the theory, “When they attack people, perhaps they are trying to protect the land that they own. And maybe, as the ancient legend says, the tiger really is watching over the forest—for everyone’s benefit.” There are color photographs on every page, showing the landscape, people, and a variety of animals encountered, though glimpses of the tigers are fleeting. The author concludes with some statistics on tigers, information on organizations working to protect them, and a brief bibliography and index. The dramatic cover photo of the tiger will attract readers, and the lively prose will keep them engaged. An appealing science adventure. (Nonfiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-618-07704-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
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