Readers will be eyewitnesses to history in this story of one fateful chapter in the Civil Rights Movement, if they can get...
The intersection of the 1968 Memphis garbage strike, the Poor People’s Campaign and the last days of Martin Luther King Jr. is brought to vivid life in a fine work of history writing.
Who knew that the story of garbage in Memphis, Tenn., could be so interesting, and so important? By 1968, Martin Luther King Jr.’s work had expanded beyond the social reforms of integration and voting rights to speaking out for economic justice and against the war in Vietnam. King, along with with a young activist named Marian Wright and others, was planning the Poor People’s Campaign, a march on Washington of the nation’s poor. The garbage workers in Memphis “represented exactly the sort of poor people his effort sought to help,” so off he went. This is history from the ground up, and Bausum makes good use of oral histories, newspapers, pamphlets, letters and photographs to tell her tale. Unfortunately, the fine historical narrative is undercut by the distracting design of the volume, cluttered with huge orange quotation marks throughout and photographs tinted blue, green and orange. The well-chosen photographs left untouched and the excellent writing would have sufficed for a topnotch nonfiction work.
Readers will be eyewitnesses to history in this story of one fateful chapter in the Civil Rights Movement, if they can get past the design. (research notes, resource guide, bibliography, citations) (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4263-0939-7
Page Count: 112
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
As he did in Lincoln Through the Lens (2008), Sandler offers a fascinating photo-essay examining how images shaped public perceptions of John F. Kennedy. In Kennedy’s case, it was television and advances in color photography and photojournalism that were influential. One of America’s most photogenic presidents, Kennedy was an astute user of the media. Following the format of the other Through the Lens books, each spread is a self-contained “chapter,” with one page of text and a full-page photograph, many in color. The book begins with an overview of Kennedy’s life and the role that photography and television played in his career. Subsequent spreads are chronological, covering Kennedy’s life from childhood through assassination. The author notes the significance of the Kennedy presidency’s being the first to be photographed mostly in color, “perfect for capturing the glamour that came to be associated with the Kennedy years.” Kennedy’s life and administration were documented with a groundbreaking intimacy the public had never known before, making this an accessible, insightful perspective on one of America’s most famous presidents. (further reading and websites, source notes, index) (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8027-2160-0
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: Dec. 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2010
Tricked out with a ribbon, foil highlights on the jacket and portrait galleries at each chapter’s head by Ireland’s leading illustrator, this handsome package offers British readers an orgy of self-congratulatory historical highlights. These are borne along on a tide of invented epithets (“ ‘Foreigners!’ spat Boudicca”), fictive sound bites (“Down with the Committee of Safety!”) and homiletic observations (“By beating Napoléon the British showed how strong they were when they worked together”). Aside from occasional stumbles like the slave trade or the Irish potato famine, Britain’s history—from the Magna Carta to the dissolution of the biggest empire “there had ever been”—unfolds as a steady trot toward ever-broader religious toleration, voting rights and personal freedom. American audiences will likely be surprised to see Mary Queen of Scots characterized as “one of the most famous of all monarchs,” and the Revolutionary War get scarcely more play than the Charge of the Light Brigade. It makes a grand tale, though, even when strict accuracy sometimes takes a back seat to truthiness. Includes timelines, lists of monarchs and an index but no source lists. (Nonfiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5122-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2010
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