Students of American history who are not familiar with the artist’s work can find these paintings elsewhere but will...
A broad overview of the American Revolution’s causes and course, paired to select works from a renowned and prolific history painter.
Axelrod has written several well-received studies in American history for adults (Lost Destiny, 2015, etc.), but though he covers the main events here, he too often resorts to simplistic claims like “The Declaration of Independence said that everyone is ‘created equal.’ For this reason, the Continental Congress decided to separate from Britain.” He does draw attention to elements in the accompanying oils, which are sometimes action scenes but more often formal portraits or reconstructions of significant moments. Künstler paints with absorbing realism and attention to period accuracy—sometimes to the extent that the narrative content plays second fiddle to the close focus on exact details of uniforms and settings. His scenes are not always shown to best effect here either, as portions of the larger illustrations vanish into gutters, and some suffer from the reproduction. The artist is best known for his Civil War paintings, a relative few of which are presented in the co-published The Civil War: 1861-1865 with a scanty but reasonably coherent text by James I. Robertson Jr. (Civil War! America Becomes One Nation, 1992). Closing timelines and lists of key figures in both volumes include some additional details.
Students of American history who are not familiar with the artist’s work can find these paintings elsewhere but will appreciate the showcase—more, likely, than they do the sketchy narrative accounts. (Nonfiction. 10-12)Pub Date: May 17, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7892-1253-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Abbeville Kids
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
An introduction to ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs buried in the Valley of the Kings. The authors begin with how archaeologist Howard Carter found the tomb of King Tut, then move back 3,000 years to the time of Thutmosis I, who built the first tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Finally they describe the building of the tomb of a later Pharaoh, Ramses II. The backward-forward narration is not always easy to follow, and the authors attribute emotions to the Pharaohs without citation. For example, “Thutmosis III was furious [with Hatshepsut]. He was especially annoyed that she planned to be buried in KV 20, the tomb of her father.” Since both these people lived 3,500 years ago, speculation on who was furious or annoyed should be used with extreme caution. And the tangled intrigue of Egyptian royalty is not easily sorted out in so brief a work. Throughout, though, there are spectacular photographs of ancient Egyptian artifacts, monuments, tomb paintings, jewels, and death masks that will appeal to young viewers. The photographs of the exposed mummies of Ramses II, King Tut, and Seti I are compelling. More useful for the hauntingly beautiful photos than the text. (brief bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7922-7223-4
Page Count: 64
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-618-06557-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
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