Intrepid adventurer Lourie (On the Trail of Lewis and Clark, not reviewed, etc.), who’s explored everything from the Amazon to the Yukon, with the Hudson and Mississippi thrown in for good measure, travels to the island of Tierra del Fuego recounting adventures of Magellan, Charles Darwin, and turn-of-the-century world traveler, Joshua Slocum. As with other adventures, Lourie enlivens his narrative with period maps and drawings, photographs and quotes from journals and diaries from the past interspersed with contemporary photographs and tidbits about the people and places. Most interesting are the selections gleaned from the journal of a sailor who traveled with Magellan in 1520 seeking a passage that would link the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. And the adventures of Joshua Slocum, who in 1898 sailed around the world in a 40-foot boat and described in his diary encounters with pirates and storms in the Strait of Magellan. After visiting Punta Arenas, Chile, Lourie, who is surprised to find himself in a modern city of 150,000, flies to Ushuaia, the southernmost tip of Tierra del Fuego and refers to Darwin’s visit there on the Beagle in 1832. Finally he stops to visit with a modern-day sheep-farming family before flying back home. Lourie is a masterful storyteller well able to bring the past alive, but it is a little disappointing to discover the mysterious land at the bottom of the world is very much like home. Period photographs and drawings are especially appealing. (map, index, further reading) (Nonfiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 1-56397-973-X
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A world-class charmer, Clements (The Janitor’s Boy, 2000, etc.) woos aspiring young authors—as well as grown up publishers, editors, agents, parents, teachers, and even reviewers—with this tongue-in-cheek tale of a 12-year-old novelist’s triumphant debut. Sparked by a chance comment of her mother’s, a harried assistant editor for a (surely fictional) children’s imprint, Natalie draws on deep reserves of feeling and writing talent to create a moving story about a troubled schoolgirl and her father. First, it moves her pushy friend Zoe, who decides that it has to be published; then it moves a timorous, second-year English teacher into helping Zoe set up a virtual literary agency; then, submitted pseudonymously, it moves Natalie’s unsuspecting mother into peddling it to her waspish editor-in-chief. Depicting the world of children’s publishing as a delicious mix of idealism and office politics, Clements squires the manuscript past slush pile and contract, the editing process, and initial buzz (“The Cheater grabs hold of your heart and never lets go,” gushes Kirkus). Finally, in a tearful, joyous scene—carefully staged by Zoe, who turns out to be perfect agent material: cunning, loyal, devious, manipulative, utterly shameless—at the publication party, Natalie’s identity is revealed as news cameras roll. Selznick’s gnomic, realistic portraits at once reflect the tale’s droll undertone and deftly capture each character’s distinct personality. Terrific for flourishing school writing projects, this is practical as well as poignant. Indeed, it “grabs hold of yourheart and never lets go.” (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-82594-3
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
This profoundly moving story is all the more impressive because of its basis in fact. Although the story is fictionalized, its most harrowing aspects are true: “Today, more than two hundred million children between the ages of five and seventeen are ‘economically active’ in the world.” Iqbal Masih, a real boy, was murdered at age 13. His killers have never been found, but it’s believed that a cartel of ruthless people overseeing the carpet industry, the “Carpet Mafia,” killed him. The carpet business in Pakistan is the backdrop for the story of a young Pakistani girl in indentured servitude to a factory owner, who also “owned” the bonds of 14 children, indentured by their own families for sorely needed money. Fatima’s first-person narrative grips from the beginning and inspires with every increment of pride and resistance the defiant Iqbal instills in his fellow workers. Although he was murdered for his efforts, Iqbal’s life was not in vain; the accounts here of children who were liberated through his and activist adults’ efforts will move readers for years to come. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-689-85445-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2003
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