Offers teens a call to action to protect all voters from disenfranchisement.
A history of the struggle for universal suffrage in the United States.
Initially suffrage was reserved for white male property owners, and while the property ownership requirement had largely been eliminated by 1800, white women were still disenfranchised, with legal control of their bodies and possessions transferring to their husbands upon marriage. Frazer (Economic Inequality, 2018) details the events and people that brought about incremental change and the eventual passage of the 19th Amendment. Suffragists’ advocacy of reform issues—abolition, free love, temperance—is also covered. Frazer does not shy away from naming the underlying racism, nativism, and elitism espoused by early suffragists such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the discomfort within the larger movement of black suffragists like Ida Wells-Barnett and Frances Harper, or the complacency of white suffragists in the implementation of Jim Crow laws instituting poll taxes and literacy tests on black men. Frazer ends with warnings about current attempts at voter suppression and calls for the protection of voting rights and the mobilization of female voters. As this is a brief overview, some topics could have benefited from additional nuance and exploration, such as historical shifts in the Republican Party and barriers to Indigenous people’s suffrage. Informative sidebars break up the text and offer important context.
Offers teens a call to action to protect all voters from disenfranchisement. (glossary, source notes, bibliography, further information, index, photo credits) (Nonfiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5415-2815-4
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Twenty-First Century/Lerner
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Congolese-American Sophie makes a harrowing trek through a war-torn jungle to protect a young bonobo.
On her way to spend the summer at the bonobo sanctuary her mother runs, 14-year-old Sophie rescues a sickly baby bonobo from a trafficker. Though her Congolese mother is not pleased Sophie paid for the ape, she is proud that Sophie works to bond with Otto, the baby. A week before Sophie's to return home to her father in Miami, her mother must take advantage
of a charter flight to relocate some apes, and she leaves Sophie with Otto and the sanctuary workers. War breaks out, and after missing a U.N. flight out, Sophie must hide herself and Otto from violent militants and starving villagers. Unable to take Otto out of the country, she decides finding her mother hundreds of miles to the north is her only choice. Schrefer jumps from his usual teen suspense to craft this well-researched tale of jungle survival set during a fictional conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Realistic characters (ape and human) deal with disturbing situations described in graphic, but never gratuitous detail. The lessons Sophie learns about her childhood home, love and what it means to be endangered will resonate with readers.
Even if some hairbreadth escapes test credulity, this is a great next read for fans of our nearest ape cousins or survival adventure. (map, author's note, author Q&A) (Adventure. 12-16)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-545-16576-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Unhappy teens in need of a lecture on thinking positively and being more in touch with one’s emotions need look no further.
Mangan presents in as many chapters a 20-point strategy that ranges from “Have a Positive Attitude” and “Cut Your Problems Into Pieces” to “Practice Being Patient” and “Appreciate the Value of Your Hard Work.” She blends private exercises like visualizing forgiveness with comments on selective attention, “problematic procrastination” and other bad habits, reframing situations to put them in different lights, “changing shoes” to understand others better and subjecting feelings to rational analysis. Though the author has a graduate degree and years of practice in clinical psychology, she offers generalities and generic situations rather than specific cases from her experience, and the book is devoid of references to further resources or even an index. Superficial advice (“If you are unsafe or are around kids that you know are bullies, just walk away”) combines with techniques that are unlikely to interest readers (“Make a song verse out of your list of helpful thoughts”). The author also makes questionable claims about the mind-body connection (“When you smile, your body sends a signal to your brain that you are happy”) and fails to make a case for regarding side forays into food habits and environmental concerns as relevant to her topic. Obvious issues and common-sense advice, unpersuasively presented. (Self-help. 12-15)
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4338-1040-4
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Magination/American Psychological Association
Review Posted Online: Aug. 9, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
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