A gripping wartime story that probes moral uncertainties.
The story of the fates of passengers on a British former luxury liner torpedoed by a German U-boat in September 1942 off the west coast of Africa.
The Laconia, with nearly 3,000 passengers aboard—Italian POWs, Polish guards, British military personnel, and civilians—was traveling from Egypt to England via the Cape of Good Hope. After being hit by the German submarine, survivors scrambled to board the insufficient number of lifeboats and rafts. After realizing the POWs—Germany’s allies—were onboard, along with women and children, U-boat Cmdr. Hartenstein tried to save as many people as he could and radioed for assistance. However, during the rescue, an American plane bombed the U-boat, forcing another evacuation of the frightened passengers. The personal stories of a few of the British survivors of varying ages and backgrounds will especially grab readers’ attention. This powerful account of human resilience and behavior during crises will inspire contemplation of the impact of war. The book explores extremes: the British mistreatment of the POWs, Hartenstein’s humanitarian actions, stronger survivors throwing a weakened sailor off a lifeboat, and an ill doctor who drowned himself, sacrificing his own life to avoid infecting others on his lifeboat. The lengthy lifeboat voyages under the brutal sun with little food and water and the experiences some survivors had in a Vichy French prison camp in Morocco are vividly described.
A gripping wartime story that probes moral uncertainties. (main characters and vessels, epilogue, glossary, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-316-40137-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In either iteration, a provocative counter to conventional, blinkered views of our national story.
A classic framing of this country’s history from a multicultural perspective, clumsily cut and recast into more simplified language for young readers.
Veering away from the standard “Master Narrative” to tell “the story of a nation peopled by the world,” the violence- and injustice-laden account focuses on minorities, from African- Americans (“the central minority throughout our country’s history”), Mexicans and Native Americans to Japanese, Vietnamese, Sikh, Russian Jewish and Muslim immigrants. Stefoff reduces Takaki’s scholarly but fluid narrative (1993, revised 2008) to choppy sentences and sound-bite quotes. She also adds debatable generalizations, such as a sweeping claim that Native Americans “lived outside of white society’s borders,” and an incorrect one that the Emancipation Proclamation “freed the slaves.” Readers may take a stronger interest in their own cultural heritage from this broad picture of the United States as, historically, a tapestry of ethnic identities that are “separate but also shared”—but being more readable and, by page count at least, only about a third longer, the original version won’t be out of reach of much of the intended audience, despite its denser prose.
In either iteration, a provocative counter to conventional, blinkered views of our national story. (endnotes, glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-60980-416-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Seven Stories
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
Thorough to a fault, and for young readers at least, no replacement for Jim Murphy’s oldie but goodie The Long Road to...
Wagonloads of detail weigh down this overstuffed account of the Civil War’s most significant battle and its aftermath.
Martin builds his narrative around numerous eyewitness accounts, despite the implication of the subtitle. He covers events from the rival armies’ preliminary jockeying for position to Lee’s retreat, the heroic efforts to care for the thousands of wounded soldiers left behind, as well as the establishment some months later of the cemetery that was the occasion for Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. The battle itself, though, quickly becomes a dizzying tally of this regiment going here, that brigade charging there, the movements insufficiently supported by the small, hard-to-read battle maps. Overheated lines like “As the armies met in battle, the ground…soaked up the blood of Americans flowing into the soil” have a melodramatic effect. Moreover, as nearly everyone mentioned even once gets one or more period portraits, the illustrations become a tedious gallery of look-alike shots of scowling men with heavy facial hair. Still, the author does offer a cogent, carefully researched view of the battle and its significance in both the short and long terms.
Thorough to a fault, and for young readers at least, no replacement for Jim Murphy’s oldie but goodie The Long Road to Gettysburg (1992). (glossary, index, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 12-15)Pub Date: June 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-62087-532-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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