Readers looking for a clear picture of “modern history’s best-known evil ruler and murderer” or the course of World War II...
O'Reilly reconstitutes his Killing Patton (2014) for younger audiences with a grabbier title, lightly massaged extracts from the original, and additional period photographs.
It’s a patch job from start to finish. The book opens with a Patton-centric account of the Battle of the Bulge that takes up nearly a third of the volume and closes with 13 arbitrarily ordered minidisquisitions on topics ranging from Hitler’s mustache and his diet to Nazi art looting and the Nuremburg trials; in between, spare glimpses of life in Hitler’s Berlin bunker alternate with accounts of the Allied drive into Germany in 1945. The narrative is composed of rearranged excerpts, subjected to editing that in some cases makes the writing even more overwrought than the original: “The woods are dark and gloomy. A dense fog makes the Germans even less visible,” becomes “The woods are dark and gloomy inside, as if covered in a shroud of pines. A dense fog makes the Germans even more invisible.” Illustrating the text are black-and-white war photos, many generic, some badly placed or bearing uninformative captions (“German tanks”), all too many blurred and murky.
Readers looking for a clear picture of “modern history’s best-known evil ruler and murderer” or the course of World War II in general would be far better off skipping this knockoff for some of the well-chosen titles recommended at the end. (maps, index) (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-62779-396-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 18, 2015
If only Benedict Arnold had died sooner. Had he been killed at the Battle of Saratoga, he’d be one of the greatest heroes of American history, and “we’d celebrate his life as one of the best action stories we have.” Instead, he survived and went on to betray the colonies and die in shame. Sheinkin sees Arnold as America’s “original action hero” and succeeds in writing a brilliant, fast-paced biography that reads like an adventure novel. Opening with the hanging of Major Andre, the British officer who plotted with Arnold to turn West Point over to the British, the story sticks to the exciting illustrative scenes of Arnold’s career—the invasion of Canada, assembling America’s first naval fleet, the Battle of Valcour Island, the Battle of Saratoga and the plot with Andre, whose parallel narrative ends in a bungled mission, his execution and Arnold’s dishonor. The author’s obvious mastery of his material, lively prose and abundant use of eyewitness accounts make this one of the most exciting biographies young readers will find. (source notes, quotation notes, maps [not seen]) (Biography. 11-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59643-486-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2010
Tricked out with a ribbon, foil highlights on the jacket and portrait galleries at each chapter’s head by Ireland’s leading illustrator, this handsome package offers British readers an orgy of self-congratulatory historical highlights. These are borne along on a tide of invented epithets (“ ‘Foreigners!’ spat Boudicca”), fictive sound bites (“Down with the Committee of Safety!”) and homiletic observations (“By beating Napoléon the British showed how strong they were when they worked together”). Aside from occasional stumbles like the slave trade or the Irish potato famine, Britain’s history—from the Magna Carta to the dissolution of the biggest empire “there had ever been”—unfolds as a steady trot toward ever-broader religious toleration, voting rights and personal freedom. American audiences will likely be surprised to see Mary Queen of Scots characterized as “one of the most famous of all monarchs,” and the Revolutionary War get scarcely more play than the Charge of the Light Brigade. It makes a grand tale, though, even when strict accuracy sometimes takes a back seat to truthiness. Includes timelines, lists of monarchs and an index but no source lists. (Nonfiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5122-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2010
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