Anyone who's ever dreamed of jousting on horseback will want a peek at this fun history of knights. Benefiting from an interactive approach, the text not only traces the career path a noble-born boy pursued to become a knight—first serving as a page, then advancing to squire, and finally earning that literal tap on the shoulder from another knight, or even the king—but also shows through detailed instruction how to construct a castle, helmet, sword, shield, catapult, etc., from foil board and other inexpensive materials. Eye-catching layouts, complete with numerous full-color photographs and period illustrations, keep readers involved, as does Gravett's inclusion of such amusing tidbits as how to behave during a medieval feast (don't throw the bones back in the serving bowl) and the recipe for a knightly dessert. Also discussed are tournaments, the code of chivalry, and the Crusades, after which the book abruptly ends; readers will only wish that it were longer. (Nonfiction. 6-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-525-65241-8
Page Count: 30
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
Rappaport makes this long struggle palpable and relevant, while Faulkner adds a winning mix of gravitas and high spirits.
Rappaport examines the salient successes and raw setbacks along the 144-year-long road between the nation’s birth and women’s suffrage.
This lively yet forthright narrative pivots on a reality that should startle modern kids: women’s right to vote was only achieved in 1920, 72 years after Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. Indeed, time’s passage figures as a textual motif, connecting across decades such determined women as Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy Stone. They spoke tirelessly, marched, organized, and got arrested. Rappaport includes events such as 1913’s Women’s Suffrage Parade in Washington, D.C., but doesn’t shy from divisive periods like the Civil War. Faulkner’s meticulously researched gouache-and-ink illustrations often infuse scenes with humor by playing with size and perspective. As Stanton and Lucretia Mott sail into London in 1840 for the World Anti-Slavery Conference, Faulkner depicts the two women as giants on the ship’s upper deck. On the opposite page, as they learn they’ll be barred as delegates, they’re painted in miniature, dwarfed yet unflappable beneath a gallery full of disapproving men. A final double-page spread mingles such modern stars as Shirley Chisholm and Sonia Sotomayor amid the historical leaders.
Rappaport makes this long struggle palpable and relevant, while Faulkner adds a winning mix of gravitas and high spirits. (biographical thumbnails, chronology, sources, websites, further reading, author’s note) (Picture book/biography. 6-8)Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7868-5142-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
Benno the cat has it pretty good, with a nice warm bed by the furnace of a Berlin apartment building, fresh milk every night, scraps from Shabbat dinners at the Adlers’ apartment and Sunday lunches with the Schmidts. Visiting Moshe’s butcher shop provides more nourishment, while the sunny window of Mitzi Stein’s fabric shop serves perfectly for afternoon naps. But one day things change, when men in brown shirts defile the neighborhood with a book-burning in the center of the street followed by the smashing of store windows, looting and destruction of certain apartments and stores. These terribly frightening events change not only Benno’s secure, happy cat existence but become known as Kristallnacht, the beginning of the Holocaust. Bisaillon’s combination of collage, drawings and digital montage create a Cubist backdrop for this darkly portrayed story told with minimal details that keep strictly to the cat’s level of understanding—it’s up to readers and their grown-ups to fill in the gaps, aided by an afterword and bibliography that provide background to the topic and grist for discussion. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8225-9929-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kar-Ben
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2010
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