The war experiences of six young people: Hans Levy (b. 1928), who escaped to Britain (his parents died at Theresienstadt); AndrÇe-Paule Godley (b. 1923), daughter of a French diplomat, who joined the Resistance; and, born in the mid- 1930's, a London girl, a German boy evacuated from Berlin, a British boy interned in the Philippines, and a Japanese girl. Their stories exemplify an international range of experience, but unfortunately Marx's reporting is so dry that, even though she herself interviewed these people, not even their own first-person comments bring them to life; she offers few of the poignantly telling details that distinguish Michael Foreman's War Boy (1990) and Howard Greenfield's 1993 book, The Hidden Children (which was researched and presented in a similar manner), or the host of other memoirs. Archival photos that are only indirectly related to the text also contribute to the impersonal flavor, as does the absence of any information about the subjects' later lives. Still, an overview that will have its uses. Maps; index. (Biography. 9-12)
Pub Date: March 16, 1994
ISBN: 0-8225-4898-4
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Lerner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care.
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
Anchored by massive resource lists for adults in tiny type at the back, these 12 thumbnails attempt, not very successfully, to introduce to young or inexpert readers the idea of “multiple intelligences.” After suggesting that “smart” can mean more than scholastic excellence, the author proceeds to prove the opposite with a cast of professionals that mixes such non-household names as physicist/geologist Luis Alvarez, astronomer Annie Jump Cannon and botanist Ynés Mexía with the more familiar likes of Thurgood Marshall, Georgia O’Keeffe and I.M. Pei. Opposite stylized, expressionistic but still recognizable portraits from Qualls, he introduces each with roughly hewn, rap-style verses, followed by a single-paragraph career sketch. Though at the beginning he lists eight intelligences, such as “Body Smart,” “Logic Smart” and even “Nature Smart,” Nikola-Lisa never directly links any of them to his subjects; instead, he instructs readers to figure it out for themselves—without providing more than scattered, vague clues. It’s a worthy concept for creative types and other misfits to absorb, but the author doesn’t seem to understand it very well himself. (Collective biography. 9-12)
Pub Date: May 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-58430-254-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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