Working from a packet of letters found in a London bookshop, Myers reconstructs the life of one Sarah Forbes Bonetta, a child of royal African descent who was rescued by a British sea captain from a sacrificial rite in Dahomey, became a goddaughter of Queen Victoria, and grew up in a succession of upper middle-class households. A celebrity in her day, Sarah, or Sally, as she was also known, visited the Queen regularly, traveled repeatedly between England and Africa, grew up to marry a West African businessman, named her first born Victoria, and died of tuberculosis in 1880, aged about 37. Filling in gaps with well-chosen passages from newspapers, memoirs, and the Queen’s diary, plus occasional speculations—“Snow! What must she have thought of snow?”—Myers (Angel to Angel, p. 498, etc.) creates a credible, perceptive picture of her probable experiences, adding for flavor detailed accounts of her wedding, a royal wedding she attended, and a general glimpse of London street life. He suggests that, although she may have felt caught between two worlds, and fully comfortable in neither, she had a lively intelligence and a gracious, forgiving nature. A generous selection of contemporary prints and photographs includes both British and African scenes, as well as portraits of Sarah and both Victorias. This solidly researched biography will enthrall readers, and ranks among Myers’s best writing. (Biography. 11-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-48669-1
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1998
A blend of fact and fiction in both text and pictures add up to a resistible invitation to create coded messages by substituting Egyptian hieroglyphics for plain language. In the perfunctory plot, an archeologist acquires a mysterious, veiled helper who guides him from one simple written clue to the next, leading ultimately to an artifact that was stolen and hidden away thousands of years ago. Along the way there’s plenty of opportunity to explain ancient Egyptian writing and funerary customs, to fill page space with small photos or images of surviving or reconstructed tombs, sarcophagi, painted murals and statuary and to practice translating the aforementioned clues. The historical information is easily available elsewhere, and though the downloadable typeface on the embedded CD will make the creation of new messages much less tedious than having to draw hieroglyphics by hand, even dedicated fans of codes and ciphers aren’t likely to give this more than a quick once-over. (Fact/fiction blend. 11-13)
Pub Date: June 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7534-6411-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Kingfisher
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
trike” in New York City and the fate of the sharecroppers in the southern cotton industry, the garment and coal mining industries loom as the real villains in child labor issues. Bartoletti provides numerous examples of how debilitating poverty drove entire families to work in utter squalor and suffer cruel treatment at the hands of profit-driven conglomerates. Personal stories illuminate the wretched conditions under which many of these children labored, with a focus on the instances when a child mobilized fellow workers to demand their rights. The grit and determination of these children who, in the face of police abuse, bureaucratic negligence, and governmental (even presidential) indifference, banded together for a common cause, and the startling black-and-white photographs, ensure that readers will be alternately awed and appalled by this stunning account of child labor in the US. (bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-88892-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
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