A balanced, reputable reference.
An introduction to the history, functionality, pitfalls, and potentials of internet-based currencies.
After explaining the basics—that bitcoin is the most well-known cryptocurrency, a digital asset used like money, that relies on blockchain (a decentralized online ledger that tracks and verifies ownership to validate transactions)—Wall Street financial writer January takes readers to the financial crisis of 2007-2008 to show the problems bitcoin was devised to solve (lack of trust in government and the banking industry as well as the weaknesses of human intermediaries). Blockchain’s complicated verification system is the answer to preventing online counterfeiting. Chapters cover cryptocurrency’s nuts and bolts as well as its struggles: its initial bad reputation for use by malefactors on the Silk Road Dark Web, the get-rich bubbles, and other vulnerabilities. The initial divide—old, White, rich establishment versus the cryptocurrency innovators—becomes blurred as banks start to use blockchain for their own ends. Despite the intriguing topic, the prose tends toward dry. Because the philosophies and motives of cryptocurrency founders and early players shaped the way the technology was used—and will be used—there are reoccurring themes of conflict between utopian and capitalistic ideals. These intriguing moments lay the groundwork for a speculative take that blockchain can disrupt present-day technological risks in the form of monopolies and data abuses from certain large companies.
A balanced, reputable reference. (timeline, glossary, source notes, further information, index, image credits) (Nonfiction. 13-18)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5415-7877-7
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Lerner
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A powerful reminder of a history that is all too timely today.
A beautifully heart-wrenching graphic-novel adaptation of actor and activist Takei’s (Lions and Tigers and Bears, 2013, etc.) childhood experience of incarceration in a World War II camp for Japanese Americans.
Takei had not yet started school when he, his parents, and his younger siblings were forced to leave their home and report to the Santa Anita Racetrack for “processing and removal” due to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066. The creators smoothly and cleverly embed the historical context within which Takei’s family’s story takes place, allowing readers to simultaneously experience the daily humiliations that they suffered in the camps while providing readers with a broader understanding of the federal legislation, lawsuits, and actions which led to and maintained this injustice. The heroes who fought against this and provided support to and within the Japanese American community, such as Fred Korematsu, the 442nd Regiment, Herbert Nicholson, and the ACLU’s Wayne Collins, are also highlighted, but the focus always remains on the many sacrifices that Takei’s parents made to ensure the safety and survival of their family while shielding their children from knowing the depths of the hatred they faced and danger they were in. The creators also highlight the dangerous parallels between the hate speech, stereotyping, and legislation used against Japanese Americans and the trajectory of current events. Delicate grayscale illustrations effectively convey the intense emotions and the stark living conditions.
A powerful reminder of a history that is all too timely today. (Graphic memoir. 14-adult)Pub Date: July 16, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-60309-450-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Top Shelf Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 4, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
A visceral window into a survivor’s childhood and a testament to the enduring influence of unconditional love.
As palliative for his beloved Abuela's worsening dementia, memoirist Ogle offers her a book of childhood recollections.
Cast in episodic rushes of free verse and paralleling events chronicled in Free Lunch (2019) and Punching Bag (2021), the poems take the author from age 4 until college in a mix of love notes to his devoted, hardworking, Mexican grandmother; gnawing memories of fights and racial and homophobic taunts at school as he gradually becomes aware of his sexuality; and bitter clashes with both his mother, described as a harsh, self-centered deadbeat with seemingly not one ounce of love to give or any other redeeming feature, and the distant White father who threw him out the instant he came out. Though overall the poems are less about the author’s grandmother than about his own angst and issues (with searing blasts of enmity reserved for his birthparents), a picture of a loving intergenerational relationship emerges, offering moments of shared times and supportive exchanges amid the raw tallies of beat downs at home, sudden moves to escape creditors, and screaming quarrels. “My memories of a wonderful woman are written in words and verses and fragments in this book,” he writes in a foreword, “unable to be unwritten. And if it is forgotten, it can always be read again.”
A visceral window into a survivor’s childhood and a testament to the enduring influence of unconditional love. (Verse memoir. 13-18)Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-324-01995-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
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