An intriguing memoir from a girl who’s become a cultural icon.
The Mongolian teen whose surprising 2014 win at the Golden Eagle Festival was charted in a 2016 documentary retells the story, expanding on her family’s nomadic Kazakh culture and the changes success has brought.
Nurgaiv’s grandfather and others secretly maintained the ancient Kazakh tradition of hunting with eagles, banned in Soviet-era Mongolia, teaching it to their sons. Watching their father teach her brother, Nurgaiv—calm, competitive, athletic—longed to learn herself. Nine years younger, born after many failed pregnancies, she was literally raised with eagles. She relates how she persuaded her parents, found her eaglet, trained and hunted with her, and entered and won the competition. Interwoven with this account is the story of a changing Mongolia amid a changing world. Before Nurgaiv’s training began, tourists—trekkers, journalists, photographers, a filmmaker—came to observe her family, whose livelihood derived in part from their visits. Each milestone on Nurgaiv’s eagle-huntress journey has been documented and shaped, as here, for an audience of outsiders. (Responding to past critiques, Nurgaiv here acknowledges that women eagle hunters competed in Kazakhstan before she did and downplays male opposition she faced.) Mediated by Welch and in translation, Nurgaiv’s voice is inconsistent. While expressions of clichéd adolescent excitement over her celebrity status feel somewhat manufactured, Nurgaiv’s love for and pride in her homeland, culture, and family come through with quiet, persuasive power.
An intriguing memoir from a girl who’s become a cultural icon. (glossary) (Memoir. 8-12)Pub Date: May 12, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-316-52261-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share.
A multiaward–winning author recalls her childhood and the joy of becoming a writer.
Writing in free verse, Woodson starts with her 1963 birth in Ohio during the civil rights movement, when America is “a country caught / / between Black and White.” But while evoking names such as Malcolm, Martin, James, Rosa and Ruby, her story is also one of family: her father’s people in Ohio and her mother’s people in South Carolina. Moving south to live with her maternal grandmother, she is in a world of sweet peas and collards, getting her hair straightened and avoiding segregated stores with her grandmother. As the writer inside slowly grows, she listens to family stories and fills her days and evenings as a Jehovah’s Witness, activities that continue after a move to Brooklyn to reunite with her mother. The gift of a composition notebook, the experience of reading John Steptoe’s Stevieand Langston Hughes’ poetry, and seeing letters turn into words and words into thoughts all reinforce her conviction that “[W]ords are my brilliance.” Woodson cherishes her memories and shares them with a graceful lyricism; her lovingly wrought vignettes of country and city streets will linger long after the page is turned.
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share. (Memoir/poetry. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-25251-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
Though a bit loose around the edges, a charmer nevertheless.
Tales of a fourth grade ne’er-do-well.
It seems that young Jordan is stuck in a never-ending string of bad luck. Sure, no one’s perfect (except maybe goody-two-shoes William Feranek), but Jordan can’t seem to keep his attention focused on the task at hand. Try as he may, things always go a bit sideways, much to his educators’ chagrin. But Jordan promises himself that fourth grade will be different. As the year unfolds, it does prove to be different, but in a way Jordan couldn’t possibly have predicted. This humorous memoir perfectly captures the square-peg-in-a-round-hole feeling many kids feel and effectively heightens that feeling with comic situations and a splendid villain. Jordan’s teacher, Mrs. Fisher, makes an excellent foil, and the book’s 1970s setting allows for her cruelty to go beyond anything most contemporary readers could expect. Unfortunately, the story begins to run out of steam once Mrs. Fisher exits. Recollections spiral, losing their focus and leading to a more “then this happened” and less cause-and-effect structure. The anecdotes are all amusing and Jordan is an endearing protagonist, but the book comes dangerously close to wearing out its welcome with sheer repetitiveness. Thankfully, it ends on a high note, one pleasant and hopeful enough that readers will overlook some of the shabbier qualities. Jordan is White and Jewish while there is some diversity among his classmates; Mrs. Fisher is White.
Though a bit loose around the edges, a charmer nevertheless. (Memoir. 8-12)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-64723-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
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