by Hugh Brewster & illustrated by Eric Velasquez ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 2007
Brewster introduces the multi-talented life of the man known to the French as Le Mozart Noir. Joseph Bologne was born in the West Indies in 1745 to a slave mother and plantation-owning father. He was well-schooled and given the title “chevalier” to prepare him for the move to the very critical French court. By age 13, Joseph went to an academic fencing school where he excelled in both fencing and music. He fenced with the Italian master Faldoni, and Queen Marie Antoinette asked him to play the violin with her at the keyboard. His talents were known and admired, yet Parisian society would not allow a mulatto to conduct the Opera nor be married to a noble woman. He did, however, become conductor of the Paris Orchestra, for which Haydn wrote six symphonies. Despite supporting the French Revolution, dropping his title and commanding troops, his connection to the court landed him in prison on false charges. Following the revolution, he was sent to Haiti to stop an uprising. This is a fascinating life laid out in clear writing that blends 16th-century history with his biography, as it combines wonderful historical and lush original art. (author’s note, bibliography, quote and picture credits, glossary, discography) (Nonfiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2007
ISBN: 0-8109-5720-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2006
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by Elinor Teele ; illustrated by Ben Whitehouse ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 12, 2016
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish.
The dreary prospect of spending a lifetime making caskets instead of wonderful inventions prompts a young orphan to snatch up his little sister and flee. Where? To the circus, of course.
Fortunately or otherwise, John and 6-year-old Page join up with Boz—sometime human cannonball for the seedy Wandering Wayfarers and a “vertically challenged” trickster with a fantastic gift for sowing chaos. Alas, the budding engineer barely has time to settle in to begin work on an experimental circus wagon powered by chicken poop and dubbed (with questionable forethought) the Autopsy. The hot pursuit of malign and indomitable Great-Aunt Beauregard, the Coggins’ only living relative, forces all three to leave the troupe for further flights and misadventures. Teele spins her adventure around a sturdy protagonist whose love for his little sister is matched only by his fierce desire for something better in life for them both and tucks in an outstanding supporting cast featuring several notably strong-minded, independent women (Page, whose glare “would kill spiders dead,” not least among them). Better yet, in Boz she has created a scene-stealing force of nature, a free spirit who’s never happier than when he’s stirring up mischief. A climactic clutch culminating in a magnificently destructive display of fireworks leaves the Coggin sibs well-positioned for bright futures. (Illustrations not seen.)
A sly, side-splitting hoot from start to finish. (Adventure. 11-13)Pub Date: April 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234510-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
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by Paolo Bacigalupi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2013
Not for the faint of heart or stomach (or maybe of any parts) but sure to be appreciated by middle school zombie cognoscenti.
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle meets Left for Dead/The Walking Dead/Shaun of the Dead in a high-energy, high-humor look at the zombie apocalypse, complete with baseball (rather than cricket) bats.
The wholesome-seeming Iowa cornfields are a perfect setting for the emergence of ghastly anomalies: flesh-eating cows and baseball-coach zombies. The narrator hero, Rabi (for Rabindranath), and his youth baseball teammates and friends, Miguel and Joe, discover by chance that all is not well with their small town’s principal industry: the Milrow corporation’s giant feedlot and meat-production and -packing facility. The ponds of cow poo and crammed quarters for the animals are described in gaggingly smelly detail, and the bone-breaking, bloody, flesh-smashing encounters with the zombies have a high gross-out factor. The zombie cows and zombie humans who emerge from the muck are apparently a product of the food supply gone cuckoo in service of big-money profits with little concern for the end result. It’s up to Rabi and his pals to try to prove what’s going on—and to survive the corporation’s efforts to silence them. Much as Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker (2010) was a clarion call to action against climate change, here’s a signal alert to young teens to think about what they eat, while the considerable appeal of the characters and plot defies any preachiness.
Not for the faint of heart or stomach (or maybe of any parts) but sure to be appreciated by middle school zombie cognoscenti. (Fiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-316-22078-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2013
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