A well-written, illuminating, if somewhat lengthy, story of a Girl Scout camp.
A history book looks at a contested Girl Scout camp and the organization that ran it.
In this volume, Robertson offers a deep dive into the history of Rockwood, a property 15 miles outside Washington, D.C., donated to the Girl Scouts in the late 1930s. Rockwood was used as a camp for girls from around the country until its eventual closure and sale to a housing developer. The book is concerned primarily with the individuals affiliated with the camp over the years, and it opens with the dramatic story of a young woman trapped when the roof of a Washington movie theater collapsed. That woman’s compelling story as well as her commitment to the Girl Scouts as an organization inspired Rockwood’s owner to donate the property after her death. The book follows the camp’s operations over the subsequent decades: its managers, guests, and administrators as well as the constant challenges of keeping the facility in working order. Because of the Girl Scouts’ connections to Washington’s elite, first ladies and other familiar names make appearances throughout the volume. Robertson explains how, for the Girl Scouts leadership, those challenges and the related expenses eventually led to the decision to close and sell the camp in 1978. There was a swift and widespread backlash from those outside the organization’s staff, with protests and lawsuits that lasted for several years until a settlement was reached. But the camp remained closed. Several appendices provide additional details and situate the conflict within nonprofit organizational systems.
The book is minutely researched, with copious endnotes after every chapter. Using a combination of news coverage, archival access, and participants’ memories, Robertson is able to build a detailed portrait of Rockwood through the years. Numerous historical photographs do a lot to bring the text to life as well. But the details can sometimes feel excessive—for example, a lengthy dive into the genealogy of Rockwood’s donor and her husband meanders a bit from the main account, and the chapters chronicling the mid-20th-century camp activities and staffing changes can feel repetitive. The explorations of the legal issues surrounding the bequest, while equally complex, are more clearly connected to the central story. Robertson is a strong writer (one camp leader “had to break up a fight between two fully uniformed Brownies who both wanted to carry the flag for a flag ceremony, and were now throwing punches with their little white-gloved fists”). With her deep knowledge of and enthusiasm for the volume’s subject, she makes the decades-long story easy to follow. Descriptions of failed sewage systems and poorly built housing make it clear why the Girl Scouts ultimately found the camp an inefficient use of resources. Although the book’s title shows where Robertson’s sympathies lie, the conflict over the camp is presented dispassionately, with no clear villains or base motives. With its narrow focus on a camp that has been closed for decades and has few connections to broader historical or cultural trends, the volume may find its audience limited. But readers with an interest in the history of the Girl Scouts will find it an informative and engrossing addition to the literature.
Pub Date: July 15, 2022
ISBN: 9798986504612
Page Count: 536
Publisher: Ann Robertson
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
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