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GAY & LESBIAN HISTORY FOR KIDS

Name: GAY & LESBIAN HISTORY FOR KIDS
Author: Jerome Pohlen
ISBN: 978-1-61373-082-9

THE CENTURY-LONG STRUGGLE FOR LBGT RIGHTS, WITH 21 ACTIVITIES

From the ...For Kids series

by Jerome Pohlen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2015

Overall, informative and appealingly told.

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With photographs and sidebars, a narrative account of the United States LGBT movement's highlights in the 20th and 21st centuries.

LGBT history before the 20th century gets only a chapterlong summary, but its powerful message shines through: "For as long as there has been human civilization, LGBT people have played a part." Subsequent chapters chronicle historical and cultural events as well as notable LGBT people, from poet Langston Hughes to "transgender superstar" Christine Jorgensen to sharp-tongued AIDS activist Larry Kramer. This is the story of people more than movements; many segments begin with an individual story ("In the fall of 1995 Kelli Peterson, a senior at East High School in Salt Lake City, turned in her paperwork for a new afterschool club: the Gay-Straight Alliance”). The portrayal of the movement as a series of personal stories creates lively and engaging prose, though it sometimes leads to oversimplification. Controversies within the movement are presented as part of the narrative, but readers are not encouraged to think critically about which side they support. Activities presented in sidebars sometimes seem thought-provoking—asking an adult about their experience with boycotts—and sometimes less so—building a "teleidoscope," a sort of kaleidoscope invented by the Mattachine Society's founder.

Overall, informative and appealingly told. (resource list, endnotes, index) (Nonfiction. 12-18)

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2015

ISBN: 978-1-61373-082-9

Page Count: 192

Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Review Posted Online: July 26, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2015

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HISTORY

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THE ANCIENT CITY

LIFE IN CLASSICAL ATHENS AND ROME

by Peter Connolly & Hazel Dodge ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1998

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Strewn with minutely detailed cityscapes, cutaway views, and interiors, this hefty urban study recaptures the architectural glories of two great cities in their heydays, with as much specific information as assignment-driven readers or browsers could want. In a substantial text providing plenty of historical background, aided by a blizzard of sharp, full-color photos of artifacts and classical art, Connolly (Pompeii, 1990) and Dodge examine both cities’ major and minor buildings, from Bronze Age remnants through the aftermath of the Persian War (for Athens) and the great fire of a.d. 64. (for Rome), also describing government, legal systems, religious ceremonies, theater and other public amusements, fashion, daily life for people of all classes, food, water, and waste disposal. More debatable or speculative reconstructions are noted as such. Equally suited to casual readers or serious study, this takes a giant step past the Eyewitness-filled cheap seats and even beyond David Macaulay territory. (maps, diagrams, glossary, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 12-16)

Pub Date: May 1, 1998

ISBN: 0-19-521409-9

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Oxford Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1998

Categories:

GENERAL HISTORY | ANCIENT | CHILDREN'S HISTORY | HISTORY

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MISSISSIPPI RIVER

A JOURNEY DOWN THE FATHER OF WATERS

by Peter Lourie ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2000

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Intrepid explorer Lourie tackles the “Father of Waters,” the Mighty Mississippi, traveling by canoe, bicycle, foot, and car, 2,340 miles from the headwaters of the great river at the Canadian border to the river’s end in the Gulf of Mexico. As with his other “river titles” (Rio Grande, 1999, etc.), he intertwines history, quotes, and period photographs, interviews with people living on and around the river, personal observations, and contemporary photographs of his journey. He touches on the Native Americans—who still harvest wild rice on the Mississippi, and named the river—loggers, steamboats, Civil War battles, and sunken treasure. He stops to talk with a contemporary barge pilot, who tows jumbo-sized tank barges, or 30 barges carrying 45,000 tons of goods up and down and comments: “You think ‘river river river’ night and day for weeks on end.” Lourie describes the working waterway of locks and barges, oil refineries and diesel engines, and the more tranquil areas with heron and alligators, and cypress swamps. A personal travelogue, historical geography, and welcome introduction to the majestic river, past and present. (Nonfiction. 10-14)