This book is stuffed with fascinating information, but its presentation reinforces an us-versus-them mentality, with Europe...
The details of life in ancient Greece are presented as a travel guide for visitors from the future.
After prefaces, introductions, charts, and warnings, readers are welcomed to Athens and told that “ancient Greece is the birthplace of everything,” a nakedly Eurocentric claim that sets the book’s tone and is repeated throughout. Next, a visit to Sparta is presented as a risky experience for time travelers, with the gruesome details of how Spartans were groomed to become “the best soldiers in the world.” In the Battle of Thermopylae, time travelers are invited to “have the honor of fighting for a glorious cause,” to defend Greek civilization against the Persians, who are pictured as dark-skinned and sinister Middle Easterners. In the Battle of Salamis, “Xerxes is Beaten Like a Persian Carpet,” as the subheading blares. Art, philosophy, and architecture characterize the golden age of Greece. In two chapters on Alexander the Great and his “Greek Conquest” (a chapter heading), the text’s irreverence reaches a new low: The daughter of King Darius of Persia “isn’t too pleased to marry her father’s killer, but then, it’s so hard to find a good husband these days.” Apparently, the world owes nearly every positive advancement to ancient Greece; slavery, conquest, and oppression of women are just part of the package.
This book is stuffed with fascinating information, but its presentation reinforces an us-versus-them mentality, with Europe on top. (bibliography) (Nonfiction. 8-13)Pub Date: Sept. 11, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-451-48027-9
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An authentic and moving time capsule of middle school angst, trauma, and joy.
Through the author’s own childhood diary entries, a seventh grader details her inner life before and after 9/11.
Alyssa’s diary entries start in September 2000, in the first week of her seventh grade year. She’s 11 and dealing with typical preteen concerns—popularity and anxiety about grades—along with other things more particular to her own life. She’s shuffling between Queens and Manhattan to share time between her divorced parents and struggling with thick facial hair and classmates who make her feel like she’s “not a whole person” due to her mixed White and Puerto Rican heritage. Alyssa is endlessly earnest and awkward as she works up the courage to talk to her crush, Alejandro; gushes about her dreams of becoming a shoe designer; and tries to solve her burgeoning unibrow problem. The diaries also have a darker side, as a sense of impending doom builds as the entries approach 9/11, especially because Alyssa’s father works in finance in the World Trade Center. As a number of the diary entries are taken directly from the author’s originals, they effortlessly capture the loud, confusing feelings middle school brings out. The artwork, in its muted but effective periwinkle tones, lends a satisfying layer to the diary’s accessible and delightful format.
An authentic and moving time capsule of middle school angst, trauma, and joy. (author's note) (Graphic memoir. 8-13)Pub Date: Aug. 17, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-77427-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care.
In 1977, the oil carrier Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into a formerly pristine Alaskan ocean inlet, killing millions of birds, animals, and fish. Despite a cleanup, crude oil is still there.
The Winters foretold the destructive powers of the atomic bomb allusively in The Secret Project (2017), leaving the actuality to the backmatter. They make no such accommodations to young audiences in this disturbing book. From the dark front cover, on which oily blobs conceal a seabird, to the rescuer’s sad face on the back, the mother-son team emphasizes the disaster. A relatively easy-to-read and poetically heightened text introduces the situation. Oil is pumped from the Earth “all day long, all night long, / day after day, year after year” in “what had been unspoiled land, home to Native people // and thousands of caribou.” The scale of extraction is huge: There’s “a giant pipeline” leading to “enormous ships.” Then, crash. Rivers of oil gush out over three full-bleed wordless pages. Subsequent scenes show rocks, seabirds, and sea otters covered with oil. Finally, 30 years later, animals have returned to a cheerful scene. “But if you lift a rock… // oil / seeps / up.” For an adult reader, this is heartbreaking. How much more difficult might this be for an animal-loving child?
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care. (author’s note, further reading) (Informational picture book. 9-12)Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3077-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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