This is history at its best, an original and appealing way to mark the centennial of this familiar disaster.
A memorial edition of an imagined magazine covers the construction and fateful voyage of the R.M.S. Titanic, Queen of the Ocean, which sank in April 1912.
As in Lincoln Shot! (2008), the design alludes to the historical period, here using the dimensions and sepia tones of an old-time newspaper supplement. Visually dramatic pages are filled with photos and memorabilia as well as eyewitness accounts that add to the “You are there” effect. The first third of Denenberg’s narrative consists of articles purportedly published between 1903 and 1912, the second is the unfinished (and miraculously recovered) journal of the magazine’s correspondent. The final section includes a chronology of the ship’s final hours, statements from survivors and an interview with the captain of the rescue ship, all based on actual testimony. A “note from the publisher” closes the narrative with a short round-up of what followed. This is a story of heroism as well as personal and corporate greed, issues that still resonate today. The text is lively, compelling and convincing, but written to answer 21st-century readers’ questions. Because readers know the outcome, many of the chosen quotations sound ironic, especially cheerful reiterations that the ship is unsinkable.
This is history at its best, an original and appealing way to mark the centennial of this familiar disaster. (author’s note, source notes, bibliography) (Nonfiction.10-14)Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-670-01243-5
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
Awash in mighty squalls, tales of heroism and melodramatic chapter headings like “The Lady Elgin: Death in the Darkness,” these marine yarns recount the violent ends of nine of the more than 6,000 ships that have “left the bottoms of Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior…littered with their wreckage and the bones of the people who sailed on them” over the past four centuries. For added value, Butts heads each shipwreck chapter with a photo or image of the unfortunate vessel. He then closes with so many Great Lakes monster sightings that they take on an aura of authenticity just by their very number, an effect aided and abetted by his liberal use of primary sources. Younger readers who might get bogged down in Michael Varhola’s more thorough Shipwrecks and Lost Treasures: Great Lakes (2008)—or turned off by its invented dialogue and embroidered details—will find these robust historical accounts more digestible and at least as engrossing. The bibliography is dominated by Canadian sources, as befitting the book’s origin, but there's plenty here to interest American readers. (Nonfiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-77049-206-6
Page Count: 88
Publisher: Tundra Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Here is an instance of book design being as exciting as the subject matter, and this subject matter is pretty wild stuff: the legendary and legendarily hellacious voyages of Ferdinand Magellan, James Cook, Ernest Shackleton, Thor Heyerdahl and Francis Chichester. A main body of text describes these maritime adventures, while a galaxy of artwork (with well-fleshed-out captions) orbits about the page: maps, archival illustrations, photographs and paintings. The overall effect is thrumming and busy but not frantic. The text is intelligently written and allows the miraculous nature of each voyage to propel the story forward. The extended captions are the color commentary, adding bright bits of information that round out the picture: the first sighting of St. Elmo’s fire, the importance of the spice trade to exploration, why it is difficult to shave on a sailboat. The selection of artwork is excellent: handsome, moody engravings; lively watercolors by the participants; photographs of Heyerdahl’s crew catching sharks by the tail; and a great picture of Chichester’s boat all roughed up in the heavy weather of 50-foot seas. In addition, fold-out pages range from a rather natty cutaway view of Chichester’s Gipsy Moth IV to Cook’s navigational triumphs; the one for Shackleton billows into six full pages of icy misery. Just the ticket for armchair explorers. (Nonfiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7534-6574-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Kingfisher
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
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