The tiny text type may keep readers lacking confidence away; otherwise, cheap thrills aplenty for casual browsers.
Muscular figures in intrepid poses stock this tribute to “stealth warriors” through the ages.
Readers whose awareness of sneaky scouts and assassins begins and ends with ninjas are in for a surprise, as Chambers picks nine other groups of fearsome fighters to join them, including the “Bold Batavi” auxiliaries who fought for ancient Rome, the central African Azande, the “Gritty Gurkhas” of Nepal, and “Hawaii’s Horror Koa.” In his painted reconstructions, Juta portrays burly heroes lurking in bushes to spy or, wielding characteristic weaponry, charging down on dismayed-looking victims. The thrills are strictly superficial, though, as the pictures are not only sans visible blood, but impersonal in composition, with the warriors usually turned away from viewers. Along with general remarks about the history and fearsomeness of each warrior type, the author supplies such facile “facts” (“factoids” would be more accurate) as “Batavi gouged and slashed their enemies’ faces,” and “Maroons used the secret powers of the Obeah spirits to scare the enemy.” In contrast to the all-male lineup here, three of the 10 historical war leaders profiled in the co-published Fierce Fighters are women. Reflecting the Warriors series’ international outlook, in the latter, only two, Alexander the Great and Vlad the Impaler, were Europeans. Pages of further “facts” and specific battles cap both volumes.
The tiny text type may keep readers lacking confidence away; otherwise, cheap thrills aplenty for casual browsers. (map, index) (Nonfiction. 10-13)Pub Date: April 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4677-9603-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Hungry Tomato/Lerner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Energizing and compassionate.
An aspiring transgender Junior Olympian swimmer finds the strength and pride in his identity to race toward his dreams in this debut coming-of-age novel by groundbreaking trans athlete Bailar.
Starting over after his abusive and discriminatory swim coach excluded him from the team, Obie Chang, a biracial (White/Korean) transgender boy worries about catching up to the other boys and proving that he is “man enough.” Although his family supports him, one of his best friends at school and the pool has turned into his biggest bully, and the other is drifting away toward the mean, popular girls. As he dives from the blocks into the challenging waters of seventh grade and swims toward his goal of qualifying for the Junior Olympics, Obie discovers belonging in his community and in himself. Affirming adults—including his parents and grandparents, a new swim coach, and his favorite teacher—play significant supporting roles by offering encouragement without pressure, centering Obie’s feelings, and validating Obie’s right to set his own boundaries. Vulnerable first-person narration explores Obie’s internal conflict about standing up for himself and his desire to connect to his Korean heritage through his relationship with Halmoni, his paternal grandmother. A romance with Charlie, a cisgender biracial (Cuban/White) girl, is gentle and privacy-affirming. Short chapters and the steady pace of external tension balance moments of rumination, grounding them in the ongoing action of Obie’s experiences.
Energizing and compassionate. (author's note, resources, glossary) (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-37946-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 7, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
PROFILES
Narrow squeaks aplenty combine with bursts of lyrical prose for a satisfying adventure
A Prohibition-era child enlists a gifted pickpocket and a pair of budding circus performers in a clever ruse to save her ancestral home from being stolen by developers.
Rundell sets her iron-jawed protagonist on a seemingly impossible quest: to break into the ramshackle Hudson River castle from which her grieving grandfather has been abruptly evicted by unscrupulous con man Victor Sorrotore and recover a fabulously valuable hidden emerald. Laying out an elaborate scheme in a notebook that itself turns out to be an integral part of the ensuing caper, Vita, only slowed by a bout with polio years before, enlists a team of helpers. Silk, a light-fingered orphan, aspiring aerialist Samuel Kawadza, and Arkady, a Russian lad with a remarkable affinity for and with animals, all join her in a series of expeditions, mostly nocturnal, through and under Manhattan. The city never comes to life the way the human characters do (Vita, for instance, “had six kinds of smile, and five of them were real”) but often does have a tangible presence, and notwithstanding Vita’s encounter with a (rather anachronistically styled) “Latina” librarian, period attitudes toward race and class are convincingly drawn. Vita, Silk, and Arkady all present white; Samuel, a Shona immigrant from Southern Rhodesia, is the only primary character of color. Santoso’s vignettes of, mostly, animals and small items add occasional visual grace notes.
Narrow squeaks aplenty combine with bursts of lyrical prose for a satisfying adventure . (Historical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4814-1948-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2019
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