A well-researched, engagingly written, though incomplete portrait of a fascinating, complex figure.
Warren explores how the man who became the most famous entertainer of his time and a legend of the "Wild West" grew up amid a violent regional conflict that would soon tear apart the nation.
William Cody was 8 when his family moved to the Kansas Territory in 1854, soon to be plunged into a bloody conflict between anti-slavery and pro-slavery factions. When his father died from complications of a savage attack after delivering an abolitionist speech, 11-year-old Billy supported his family herding cattle, working on wagon trains, and riding for the Pony Express. Seeking revenge, he joined the Jayhawkers, guerrilla irregulars fighting pro-slavery militant groups. He enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War and later worked as a scout during the Indian Wars. Providing contextualizing information along the way, Warren chronicles all these colorful adventures in lively prose but, perhaps due to her focus on his early years, gives short shrift to Cody's contradictions. He earned his nickname for single-handedly slaughtering thousands of bison yet feared their extinction and spoke out against hide-hunting; that selfsame slaughter was part of a U.S. government campaign to destroy Plains Indian culture, yet Cody hated how the Indians were treated—both of these are largely unexplored. The volume is liberally illustrated with archival material, and extensive backmatter supplements the narrative.
A well-researched, engagingly written, though incomplete portrait of a fascinating, complex figure. (notes, bibliography, index) (Biography. 10-14)Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4778-2718-5
Page Count: 246
Publisher: Two Lions
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Long before the Internet, 24-hour news cycles and social networking, the 25-inch-tall General Tom Thumb was a household name in both the United States and Europe. Tom owed his celebrity and wealth to the marketing genius of master showman P.T. Barnum. This lively biography chronicles the remarkable life and career of Charles Sherwood Stratton, who was recruited by Barnum when he was 5 years old and rechristened General Tom Thumb. Under Barnum's tutelage, Tom learned skills that led him to become an accomplished entertainer. Not all of Barnum's influences were positive. "At five, Tom…was drinking wine with meals. At seven, he smoked cigars. By nine, he chewed tobacco. He never had a day of school." Sullivan notes that for a "human oddity" like Tom, there were few choices other than show business. (Regrettably, the author misses this opportunity to further explore the ethics of this sort of exploitation.) Tom was no ordinary sideshow attraction, appearing before Queen Victoria twice and becoming the toast of high society. He also enjoyed a happy marriage and his fame and fortune to the end of his eventful life. Tom's personal and professional relationships with Barnum make this biography a superb complement to Candace Fleming's The Great and Only Barnum (2009). (endnotes, bibliography, index) (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-18203-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 29, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2011
Trailing the stampede of Lincoln-bicentennial studies, this profile of “the clan that might have become America’s royal family but instead became America’s cursed family” offers both a wagonload of fascinating period photos and a case study in domestic tragedy and dysfunction. Leading Lincoln scholar Holzer portrays his presidential paterfamilias as an absentee saint—away on business for much of his four sons’ formative years but ever loving and gentle with his notably histrionic wife and an indulgent pushover who let his lads run hog wild. Conversely, though devastated by 3-year-old Eddie’s death in 1850 and 11-year-old Willie’s in 1862, his relations with Robert (the eldest and the only child to live past his teens, presented here as thoroughly unlikable) were distant at best. If the author sometimes hobbles his narrative with fussy details, he also tucks in such intimate touches as samples of homely verse from both parents and children and finishes off with quick looks at all of the direct descendants. A natural companion for Candace Fleming’s fine The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary (2008). (endnotes, adult-level bibliography) (Biography. 11-14)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59078-303-0
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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