Avast ye, mateys! Shake a leg and join 18th-century pirate-hunter William Lubber, Esq. on an around-the-world sail in search of “that especially Germinous female pirate Arabella Drummond.” His trip features stops at North Carolina’s Ocracoke Inlet, where Blackbeard met his doom, Caribbean pirate haven Port Royal and various remote Pacific isles just right for leaving or finding castaways, plus encounters with Chinese and Barbary pirates. The passages from Lubber’s log are interspersed with maps and flaps, dramatic scenes of fictional and historical pirates buckling swash (or in two cases, twisting in the wind), booklets, trading card–style portraits, views of ships, Jolly Rogers and nautical gear—not to mention detachable packets of letters, a two-part treasure map with coded message, lengths of lanyard for knot-making practice, a packet of glittering “gold dust” and covers embedded with both a compass and an oversized “jewel.” Landlocked young buccaneers (and fans of the other “-ology” outings) who have already hijacked John Matthews’s kindred production Pirates! (May 2006) will rush to board—and to attack the enticing associated website. (Novelty. 9-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-7636-3143-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Falters in its oversimplified portrayal of a complicated region and people.
Parallel storylines take readers through the lives of two young people on Sept. 11 in 2001 and 2019.
In the contemporary timeline, Reshmina is an Afghan girl living in foothills near the Pakistan border that are a battleground between the Taliban and U.S. armed forces. She is keen to improve her English while her twin brother, Pasoon, is inspired by the Taliban and wants to avenge their older sister, killed by an American bomb on her wedding day. Reshmina helps a wounded American soldier, making her village a Taliban target. In 2001, Brandon Chavez is spending the day with his father, who works at the World Trade Center’s Windows on the World restaurant. Brandon is heading to the underground mall when a plane piloted by al-Qaida hits the tower, and his father is among those killed. The two storylines develop in parallel through alternating chapters. Gratz’s deeply moving writing paints vivid images of the loss and fear of those who lived through the trauma of 9/11. However, this nuance doesn’t extend to the Afghan characters; Reshmina and Pasoon feel one-dimensional. Descriptions of the Taliban’s Afghan victims and Reshmina's gentle father notwithstanding, references to all young men eventually joining the Taliban and Pasoon's zeal for their cause counteract this messaging. Explanations for the U.S. military invasion of Afghanistan in the author’s note and in characters’ conversations too simplistically present the U.S. presence.
Falters in its oversimplified portrayal of a complicated region and people. (author’s note) (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-24575-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
Whirls of tiny, brightly dressed people’some with wings—fill Kleven’s kaleidoscopic portraits of sun-drenched Los Angeles neighborhoods and landmarks; the Los Angeles—based authors supply equally colorful accounts of the city’s growth, festivals, and citizens, using an appended chronology to squeeze in a few more anecdotes. As does Kathy Jakobsen’s My New York (1998), Jaskol and Lewis’s book captures a vivid sense of a major urban area’s bustle, diversity, and distinctive character; young Angelenos will get a hearty dose of civic pride, and children everywhere will find new details in the vibrant illustrations at every pass. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-525-46214-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
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