Responding to a nationwide appeal during the Irish potato famine, the impoverished Choctaw nation collected $170 (about $5,000 in modern terms) only 15 years after their forced relocation by whites to what is now Oklahoma;with fine insight, this commemoration explains how and why the Choctaw were able to set their anger aside. Choona, too young to know the details of his people’s long march, hears the tale from his great-grandmother and rebels at the thought of sending money to Europeans; he comes to understand that the gift will help its givers as much, if not more, than its receivers. Working with tribal experts, Fitzpatrick gets the visual and cultural details right, and illustrates her episode with large, precise pencil drawings of realistically modeled figures and objects. This is a moving tribute to a little-known act of generosity, an “arrow shot through time,” that will leave readers astonished and deeply affected. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 1998
ISBN: 1-885223-71-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1998
Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-44887-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
A clear, understandable account of a young Jewish boy's terrible experiences during the World War II. In 1944, when Eliezer Wiesel was 15, his town of Sighet (then part of Hungary) was invaded by the German army, who forced all the Jews to live in ghettos. From there, the Wiesel family were sent to concentration camps where, with the exception of Elie, they all were killed. Without fanfare but with dignified emphasis, author Pariser describes the cruelties and horrors of Wiesel's life as an inmate, as well as his subsequent liberation by Allied forces and his future vocation as a journalist, author, speaker, and political activist. Photographs from the WW II period establish a mood of somber witness. With its clear, narrative style, useful bibliography, chronology, and index, this is an excellent introduction to what is undeniably one of the darkest periods in modern history. (Nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: Aug. 15, 1994
ISBN: 1-56294-419-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Millbrook
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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