Books on dogs who served in war make up a minor genre. This account will appeal to dog lovers and history buffs who can...
An enthusiastic dual biography of a man and his wartime animal companion.
A Czech volunteer in the French Air Force, Robert Bozdech crashed in no man’s land at the beginning of WWII. Returning to friendly lines, he discovered a puppy in an abandoned house and kept it throughout his service, including four years of missions for the Royal Air Force. With access to Bozdech’s papers and unpublished memoirs, journalist Lewis (co-author: Sergeant Rex: The Unbreakable Bond Between a Marine and His Military Working Dog, 2011, etc.), who has reported from war and conflict zones for a variety of news outlets, delivers a detailed narrative. Named Antis, the dog was impressively loyal, intelligent and stoic. It accompanied Bozdech in the headlong retreat across France after the Nazi invasion and cooperated as his master smuggled him aboard a ship to Gibraltar and then another to Britain (pets were forbidden). Antis smuggled himself aboard his master’s bomber and flew several missions over Europe before being severely injured by flak. He was also buried in rubble for several days after a bombing attack, shot by an angry farmer for chasing sheep, and suffered nearly fatal cold injury due to the fact that he waited beside the runway for Bozdech’s return, often for days, refusing food and ignoring rain and snow. His presence was no secret to the British media, who made him a national celebrity, and he later received the Dickin Medal, the animal equivalent of the Victoria Cross. Bozdech himself was equally impressive, completing his missions in Bomber Command (only half survived) and then completing another turn in the Coastal Command.
Books on dogs who served in war make up a minor genre. This account will appeal to dog lovers and history buffs who can tolerate the florid novelization and fictionalized dialogue.Pub Date: June 10, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-3914-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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