Developing the theme that paying attention can lead to sometimes revolutionary discoveries, Fradin presents 11 case studies in serendipity, from fossil-hunter Mary Anning and Newton’s apple to Jocelyn Bell’s discovery of pulsars. He not only writes clearly and forcefully, but brings uncommon authority to several of his profiles. He interviewed or corresponded with not only Bell, but Clyde Tombaugh (discoverer of Pluto), a surviving son of Maria Sanz de Santuola, who as a child found the cave paintings at Altamira and a scholar familiar with Muhammad Ahmed el-Hamed, the Palestinian who as a lad found the Dead Sea Scrolls. The author rightly notes at the outset that preparation and particular traits of character, such as innate stubbornness or strong curiosity, played roles at least as vital as luck did in each discovery—but he urges readers to follow the advice of Dr. Alex Wolszczan (first extra-solar planets): “Keep your eyes wide open for something unusual at all times.” Not bad advice. An exhilarating companion for the likes of Charlotte Jones’s Mistakes That Worked (1991). (photos, source notes) (Nonfiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-525-47196-0
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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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