An absorbing story of colorful times.
Marathons are commonplace now, but one of the earliest 20th-century long-distance races was the multiday, coast-to-coast Transcontinental Foot Race, little known now but an event that captured the world’s imagination in 1928.
The race began in Los Angeles and finished in New York City, covering 3,423.5 miles. Out of the 199 runners who began on March 4, 1928, only 55 finished 84 days later. Newspapers called it the Bunion Derby. The race was conceived by Oklahoma businessman Cyrus Avery at the height of the Roaring ’20s, a time of optimism and excess. Charles Lindbergh had recently made the first solo trans-Atlantic flight. People tried to outdo each other with outrageous stunts. Dance marathoners danced for days, and pole-sitters sat atop flagpoles for weeks to set and break records. Avery teamed up with C.C. Pyle, the “P.T. Barnum of Professional Sports,” to organize the race. The nearly 200 men of all races and nationalities who started the race faced a variety of obstacles—extreme weather, poor food and living conditions, prejudice, and injury. Speno’s detailed, engaging narrative brings the times and the race vividly to today’s readers. Chapters are broken up into topical subsections (on the “Good Roads Movement” and international participation, for instance), and plentiful archival material complements the lively narrative.
An absorbing story of colorful times. (photos, maps, statistics, bibliography, source notes) (Nonfiction. 10-16)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62979-602-4
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
Deftly written and informative; a call for vigilance and equality.
An examination of the history of Chinese American experiences.
Blackburn opens with a note to readers about growing up feeling invisible as a multicultural, biracial Chinese American. She notes the tremendous diversity of Chinese American history and writes that this book is a starting point for learning more. The evenly paced narrative starts with the earliest recorded arrival of the Chinese in America in 1834. A teenage girl, whose real name is unknown, arrived in New York Harbor with the Carnes brothers, merchants who imported Chinese goods and put her on display “like an animal in a circus.” The author then examines shifting laws, U.S. and global political and economic climates, and changing societal attitudes. The book introduces the highlighted people—including Yee Ah Tye, Wong Kim Ark, Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, and Vincent Chen—in relation to lawsuits or other transformative events; they also stand as examples for explaining concepts such as racial hierarchy and the model minority myth. Maps, photos, and documents are interspersed throughout. Chapters close with questions that encourage readers to think critically about systems of oppression, actively engage with the material, and draw connections to their own lives. Although the book covers a wide span of history, from the Gold Rush to the rise in anti-Asian hate during the Covid-19 pandemic, it thoroughly explains the various events. Blackburn doesn’t shy away from describing terrible setbacks, but she balances them with examples of solidarity and progress.
Deftly written and informative; a call for vigilance and equality. (resources, bibliography, image credits) (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780593567630
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
A balanced, well-written, and compelling survey of broad significance and usefulness.
Fairbanks (Anishinaabe) skillfully narrates the complex history of the treatment of Indigenous people in the present-day U.S. from the pre-colonization era to contemporary cultural revitalization.
Although this book is focused on boarding schools, the author begins the narrative long before their creation, offering crucial background knowledge by introducing readers to cultural values that guided daily life and intertribal relations in the Americas before the arrival of European colonizers. She carefully outlines the frameworks that affected the relationships between tribes and early explorers, settlers, and the federal government, such as the Doctrine of Discovery and Manifest Destiny. Next, breaking down the treatment of Indigenous peoples into seven eras from the 1770s through today, she discusses the many shifts in attitudes, treaties, and laws, including harsh efforts to “civilize” Native children. Written in a conversational style, the substantive narrative helps readers comprehend the policies that led to the establishment of boarding schools and understand how they were run. While Fairbanks doesn’t shy away from describing children’s mistreatment in the schools, she includes stories of survivors who went on to excel in their careers despite these experiences. The narrative is interspersed with occasional historical photographs, vignettes, and poems that add to an understanding of the boarding school experience. Each chapter ends with engaging questions that support deeper discussions. Text boxes furnish definitions of terms like Indigenous, genocide, treaties, assimilation, and self-determination.
A balanced, well-written, and compelling survey of broad significance and usefulness. (author’s note, list of boarding schools, resources, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2026
ISBN: 9780593811399
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
