by Brad Rouse ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 18, 2022
A detailed and often appealingly upbeat series of positive climate change strategies.
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A memoiristic call to build a new ecological future.
In 2013, environmental nonprofit founder Rouse sold his financial planning business to devote himself full time to ecological activism, due to the threat posed by climate change. In this nonfiction debut, he weaves together his own story of his growing environmental awareness with a broader account of climate challenges facing the planet in the 21st century. He details his slow awakening as a “climate warrior,” citing his time as a Boy Scout—which makes him recall that “There was a time when service, duty, honor and obligation to something larger was more important than money and personal success”—his education in economics at Yale University, and even how he worked “to make our local community theatre more energy efficient” as president of a Rotary Club. He also pinpoints moments of deeper realization, such as the 2008 presidential election, which took place years after President George W. Bush expressed opposition to the Kyoto Protocol; he expresses disappointment at President Barack Obama’s climate-related policies. He includes sections describing the scale of climate threats, with helpful black-and-white illustrations, and lays out possible solutions—actions that could be taken collectively to bring about positive change by the year 2050, such as increased production of solar power and the development of carbon-free electrical systems. Although this book bombards the reader with depressing climate change facts and trends, it’s also a clear reflection of Rouse’s own private awakening, which give it a consistently uplifting tone. He effectively stresses that political will is the most necessary element to bring about substantive change, and he straightforwardly urges readers to exercise that will: “Speak the truth with those who can make a difference,” he writes. “You can influence fossil fuel in your role as a customer.” The book’s autobiographical elements are less compelling, but its overall tone of optimism ultimately carries the day.
A detailed and often appealingly upbeat series of positive climate change strategies.Pub Date: March 18, 2022
ISBN: 979-8985377101
Page Count: 330
Publisher: Wisdom House Books
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Jennette McCurdy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 9, 2022
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
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The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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