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THE COLD WAR

Name: THE COLD WAR
Author: Stephanie Bearce
ISBN: 978-1-61821-419-5

SECRETS, SPECIAL MISSIONS, & HIDDEN FACTS ABOUT THE CIA, KGB, AND MI6

From the Top Secret Files series

by Stephanie Bearce ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2015

A nifty supplement to traditional nonfiction and fiction on the period.

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Bearce’s latest installment in the Top Secret Files series introduces young readers to the Cold War.

Following the design and format of the previous titles in the series, reading this book is rather like opening a filing cabinet, reaching in, and pulling out a file. Any file will do. Skip around; every file contains something interesting: stories of the CIA operative who made an escape dressed as a dog; the Cambridge University students who became KGB spies; the 87-year-old “grey-haired granny” who became a spy. Suggested activities have readers making up secret codes, creating parachutes, making “glacier goo,” and creating UFOs. The “carrot submarine” activity even refers budding vegetable sculptors to a YouTube video if they need help. Interesting tidbits about poop-shaped transmitters, animal agents, U-2 spy planes, the space race, and even Dr. Seuss’ The Butter Battle Book add to the fun. The writing style of the longer chapters—such as “Tunnels to Freedom” and “They Built a Wall”—is direct and matter-of-fact, imparting information clearly. Most entries have lead sentences designed to pull readers in: “What do a raven, a cat, and a dolphin have in common? They were all trained as agents for the CIA.” Particularly valuable for young researchers is a lengthy guide to relevant websites.

A nifty supplement to traditional nonfiction and fiction on the period. (Nonfiction. 9-12)

Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-61821-419-5

Page Count: 128

Publisher: Prufrock Press

Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HISTORY

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OIL

by Jonah Winter ; illustrated by Jeanette Winter ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 31, 2020

Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care.

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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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HISTORY | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
BIRD REHEARSAL
by Jonah Winter ; illustrated by Stacy Innerst

- BOOK REVIEW
THE SNOW MAN
by Jonah Winter ; illustrated by Jeanette Winter

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LITTLE OWL & THE BIG TREE
by Jonah Winter ; illustrated by Jeanette Winter

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GHOST TOWNS OF THE AMERICAN WEST

by Raymond Bial ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2001

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Bial (A Handful of Dirt, p. 299, etc.) conjures up ghostly images of the Wild West with atmospheric photos of weathered clapboard and a tally of evocative names: Tombstone, Deadwood, Goldfield, Progress, Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickock, the OK Corral. Tracing the life cycle of the estimated 30,000 ghost towns (nearly 1300 in Utah alone), he captures some echo of their bustling, rough-and-tumble past with passages from contemporary observers like Mark Twain: “If a man wanted a fight on his hands without any annoying delay, all he had to do was appear in public in a white shirt or stove-pipe hat, and he would be accommodated.” Among shots of run-down mining works, dusty, deserted streets, and dark eaves silhouetted against evening skies, Bial intersperses 19th-century photos and prints for contrast, plus an occasional portrait of a grizzled modern resident. He suggests another sort of resident too: “At night that plaintive hoo-hoo may be an owl nesting in a nearby saguaro cactus—or the moaning of a restless ghost up in the graveyard.” Children seeking a sense of this partly mythic time and place in American history, or just a delicious shiver, will linger over his tribute. (bibliography) (Nonfiction. 9-11)