The latest stop in his photographic tour of ancient American civilizations brings Lourie to excavations beneath the streets of both Mexico City and the pre-Aztec ruins of Teotihuacan. Prefacing each short chapter with a passage of usually rather valedictory Aztec poetry, he offers brief visitor’s impressions while following archeologists into digs at the Great Temple and later, the Pyramid of the Moon. He fills in historical background with notes on Aztec society (not quite as blood-soaked, he suggests, as often portrayed) and an account of Cortés’s catastrophic arrival. A generous array of big color photos range from pictures of modern cityscapes to huge preserved ancient structures, from vivid manuscript illustrations and stone carvings to engaging scenes of scientists engrossed in their careful work. Writing with contagious enthusiasm, the author will kindle in readers the same wonder he feels at the way clues to our shared past are being found in these places nearly every day. (bibliography) (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-59078-069-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Norman (The Girl Who Dreamed Only Geese, 1997) presents seven trickster tales collected from living Algonquian storytellers, collated from multiple versions and backed up by specific source notes. That said, the scholarship is unobtrusive, and readers will have no trouble following Trickster from one pickle to the next. They may be puzzled at times—in the first story a meeting with a man/bear-hermit persuades Trickster, for some reason, to stop boasting that he’s “best at being alone”—but they’ll also laugh when Fox is bamboozled out of all but the feet of a brace of ducks, or when Trickster is tricked out in a coat of moldy fish heads in one tale, and a weasel’s tail in another. The lines of text are varied in length to evoke the cadences of live telling, and Pohrt’s human and animal figures are depicted with expressive, fine-lined realism. An inviting, inarguably authentic collection. (Folklore. 8-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-200888-8
Page Count: 82
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Whirls of tiny, brightly dressed people’some with wings—fill Kleven’s kaleidoscopic portraits of sun-drenched Los Angeles neighborhoods and landmarks; the Los Angeles—based authors supply equally colorful accounts of the city’s growth, festivals, and citizens, using an appended chronology to squeeze in a few more anecdotes. As does Kathy Jakobsen’s My New York (1998), Jaskol and Lewis’s book captures a vivid sense of a major urban area’s bustle, diversity, and distinctive character; young Angelenos will get a hearty dose of civic pride, and children everywhere will find new details in the vibrant illustrations at every pass. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-525-46214-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
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