An uneven and ultimately disappointing exploration of an interesting topic.
Amelia Earhart, D.B. Cooper, and Jimmy Hoffa are among many whose mysterious disappearances have significantly added to their fame.
They are joined in this exploration of missing people by the two young princes who disappeared from the Tower of London in 1483; Barbara Newhall Follett, an author who went missing in 1939; and William Morgan, who may have been murdered by Freemasons in upstate New York in 1826. Guiberson first provides extensive background information on the missing people, then turns to each disappearance and, eventually, explores efforts to find the missing. The stories are presented in often confusing prose that too frequently combines poorly structured sentences (“A body for William Morgan was never found”) and occasional sentence fragments (“That she was full of energy and new ideas and would never quit”). Budding sleuths who may hope to learn about efforts to solve these intriguing mysteries will be disappointed, as the focus is nearly all on the protagonists’ lives rather than their disappearances. The chapter on Morgan interrupts the tale of his disappearance to spend 14 pages on a history of Freemasons. When Morgan again becomes the primary topic, passing references to key players and locations (“the sheriff” and “the icy river”) serve merely to confuse. A thorough bibliography is helpfully subdivided by subject.
An uneven and ultimately disappointing exploration of an interesting topic. (index) (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-13340-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Godwin Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats.
Why should grown-ups get all the historical, scientific, athletic, cinematic, and artistic glory?
Choosing exemplars from both past and present, Mitchell includes but goes well beyond Alexander the Great, Anne Frank, and like usual suspects to introduce a host of lesser-known luminaries. These include Shapur II, who was formally crowned king of Persia before he was born, Indian dancer/professional architect Sheila Sri Prakash, transgender spokesperson Jazz Jennings, inventor Param Jaggi, and an international host of other teen or preteen activists and prodigies. The individual portraits range from one paragraph to several pages in length, and they are interspersed with group tributes to, for instance, the Nazi-resisting “Swingkinder,” the striking New York City newsboys, and the marchers of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade. Mitchell even offers would-be villains a role model in Elagabalus, “boy emperor of Rome,” though she notes that he, at least, came to an awful end: “Then, then! They dumped his remains in the Tiber River, to be nommed by fish for all eternity.” The entries are arranged in no evident order, and though the backmatter includes multiple booklists, a personality quiz, a glossary, and even a quick Braille primer (with Braille jokes to decode), there is no index. Still, for readers whose fires need lighting, there’s motivational kindling on nearly every page.
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats. (finished illustrations not seen) (Collective biography. 10-13)Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-751813-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Puffin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
Hot on the heels of the well-received Leonardo da Vinci (2005) comes another agreeably chatty entry in the Giants of Science series. Here the pioneering physicist is revealed as undeniably brilliant, but also cantankerous, mean-spirited, paranoid and possibly depressive. Newton’s youth and annus mirabilis receive respectful treatment, the solitude enforced by family estrangement and then the plague seen as critical to the development of his thoughtful, methodical approach. His subsequent squabbles with the rest of the scientific community—he refrained from publishing one treatise until his rival was dead—further support the image of Newton as a scientific lone wolf. Krull’s colloquial treatment sketches Newton’s advances in clearly understandable terms without bogging the text down with detailed explanations. A final chapter on “His Impact” places him squarely in the pantheon of great thinkers, arguing that both his insistence on the scientific method and his theories of physics have informed all subsequent scientific thought. A bibliography, web site and index round out the volume; the lack of detail on the use of sources is regrettable in an otherwise solid offering for middle-grade students. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-05921-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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