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ANCIENT VOICES

Name: ANCIENT VOICES
Author: Kate Hovey
ISBN: 0-689-83342-3

by Kate Hovey & illustrated by Murray Kimber ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2004

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Hovey follows up Arachne Speaks (2001) with nearly two dozen equally strong, expressionistic poems, introducing Olympians and other immortals either in their own voices, or through the eyes of Ganymede, their once-mortal cupbearer. The poet uses a variety of forms and tones, from Hephaestus’s proud, bitter account of how his father Zeus lamed him, to Aphrodite’s snippy take on the Venus de Milo—“She is beautiful, but cold: / Chipped, stained, / broken / old, / while I still have my youthful charms— / not to mention, both my arms,” or Ganymede’s weary, “When night falls on Olympus, / my spirit’s free to roam / above the moonlit treetops / far away—home.” In witty, Art Deco illustrations, Kimber casts the Muses as a gospel choir, sends Ares thundering past on a motorcycle, and dresses the monumentally proportioned Zeus in a short-pants “King and I” costume. Despite long endnotes, readers already familiar with the Greek and Roman pantheons will be in the best position to by moved, amused, and captivated by this gallery of powerful figures expressing powerful, but also very human, feelings. (Poetry. 12+)

Pub Date: March 1, 2004

ISBN: 0-689-83342-3

Page Count: 40

Publisher: McElderry

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2004

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL SCIENCES | CHILDREN'S POETRY

- BOOK REVIEW
VOICES OF THE TROJAN WAR
by Kate Hovey & illustrated by Leonid Gore

- BOOK REVIEW
ARACHNE SPEAKS
by Kate Hovey & illustrated by Blair Drawson

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THE UNTOLD HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 30, 2012

Preaching to the choir, perhaps, but an invigorating sermon all the same.

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Zinn-ian conspiracy theories, propounded engagingly and energetically by filmmaker and gadfly Stone and Cold War scholar Kuznick (History/American Univ.).

If you’ve read Howard Zinn—or if, like Jeff Lebowski, the Port Huron Statement is still current news for you—then you’ll have at least some of the outlines of this overstuffed argument. Premise 1: Though the United States may pretend to be a nice, cuddly sort of democracy, it’s the font of much trouble in the world. Premise 2: When, post-9/11, neocons began pondering why it wouldn’t be such a bad idea for the U.S. to become an imperial power, they were missing a train (or Great White Fleet) that had pulled out of the station long ago. Premise 3: We like European fascists better than Asian fascists, as evidenced by propaganda posters depicting our erstwhile Japanese foes as rats and vermin. Premise 4: War is a racket that benefits only the ruling class. Premise 5: JFK knew more than he had a chance to make public, and he was gunned down for his troubles. And so forth. Layered in with these richly provocative (and eminently arguable) theses are historical aperçus and data that don’t figure in most standard texts—e.g., the showdown between Bernard Baruch and Harry Truman (“in a colossal failure of presidential leadership”) that could only lead to a protracted struggle between the U.S. and the Soviet Union for post–World War II dominance. Some familiar villains figure in as well, notably the eminently hissable Henry Kissinger and his pal Augusto Pinochet; the luster of others whom we might want to think of as good guys dims (George H.W. Bush in regard to Gorbachev), while other bad guys (George W. Bush in regard to Saddam Hussein) get worse.

Preaching to the choir, perhaps, but an invigorating sermon all the same.