Readers with a taste for trivia and the strange-but-true aspects of geography and history will find much to enjoy.
With the phrase “fake news” being tossed around a great deal these days, this collection of stories in which one out of every three is a lie is both timely and entertaining.
Divided into three parts under the categories “Hazy Histories,” “Peculiar Places,” and “Perplexing People,” each chapter features three bizarre stories, two of which are true and one false. Readers must determine through research which stories are false (or flip to the back to find out). Some fake stories have a foundational basis in fact, while others are outright fabrications. Readers are challenged to determine the verity of Boilerplate, an early robot that participated in the Spanish-American War and the Boxer Rebellion in China; of Dog Island, a place off the coast of Florida where over 2,500 formerly domesticated pooches have been “rewilded”; and of the village of Nagoro, Japan, which is populated by hundreds of life-size dolls. Manipulated photographs enhance credibility, and the true stories matched with the false are strange enough to make it difficult to discern the real from the fake. Readers spurred to research which story is false are given some tips. The authors acknowledge the pitfalls of internet research and relying on Wikipedia, but a little oddly, there are no references to specific sources that debunk hoaxes and false news reports.
Readers with a taste for trivia and the strange-but-true aspects of geography and history will find much to enjoy. (photos, source notes) (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: June 26, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-241886-9
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Walden Pond Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
Deftly written and informative; a call for vigilance and equality.
An examination of the history of Chinese American experiences.
Blackburn opens with a note to readers about growing up feeling invisible as a multicultural, biracial Chinese American. She notes the tremendous diversity of Chinese American history and writes that this book is a starting point for learning more. The evenly paced narrative starts with the earliest recorded arrival of the Chinese in America in 1834. A teenage girl, whose real name is unknown, arrived in New York Harbor with the Carnes brothers, merchants who imported Chinese goods and put her on display “like an animal in a circus.” The author then examines shifting laws, U.S. and global political and economic climates, and changing societal attitudes. The book introduces the highlighted people—including Yee Ah Tye, Wong Kim Ark, Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, and Vincent Chen—in relation to lawsuits or other transformative events; they also stand as examples for explaining concepts such as racial hierarchy and the model minority myth. Maps, photos, and documents are interspersed throughout. Chapters close with questions that encourage readers to think critically about systems of oppression, actively engage with the material, and draw connections to their own lives. Although the book covers a wide span of history, from the Gold Rush to the rise in anti-Asian hate during the Covid-19 pandemic, it thoroughly explains the various events. Blackburn doesn’t shy away from describing terrible setbacks, but she balances them with examples of solidarity and progress.
Deftly written and informative; a call for vigilance and equality. (resources, bibliography, image credits) (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780593567630
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
Hot on the heels of the well-received Leonardo da Vinci (2005) comes another agreeably chatty entry in the Giants of Science series. Here the pioneering physicist is revealed as undeniably brilliant, but also cantankerous, mean-spirited, paranoid and possibly depressive. Newton’s youth and annus mirabilis receive respectful treatment, the solitude enforced by family estrangement and then the plague seen as critical to the development of his thoughtful, methodical approach. His subsequent squabbles with the rest of the scientific community—he refrained from publishing one treatise until his rival was dead—further support the image of Newton as a scientific lone wolf. Krull’s colloquial treatment sketches Newton’s advances in clearly understandable terms without bogging the text down with detailed explanations. A final chapter on “His Impact” places him squarely in the pantheon of great thinkers, arguing that both his insistence on the scientific method and his theories of physics have informed all subsequent scientific thought. A bibliography, web site and index round out the volume; the lack of detail on the use of sources is regrettable in an otherwise solid offering for middle-grade students. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-05921-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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