A group of Quakers on Nantucket Island help a runaway slave and his family escape the clutches of slave catchers. Set in 1822 and based on a true incident, Stowe tells the story of real-life Arthur Cooper’s second escape, his first being from a life of slavery on a plantation in Virginia. When the book opens, Arthur is living with his free-born wife and their children on the Island of Nantucket. The story revolves around the fictional character Phebe Folger, a Quaker girl who gets to know Arthur’s wife, Mary, when she comes to tend to her badly injured mother. Mary breathes life into a house filled with sorrow, helping Phebe’s mother, disheartened by her physical condition and the long, slow recovery period, heal, and Phebe becomes deeply attached to her. So when Phebe hears that there are slave catchers at the Coopers’ door, she disobeys her father and goes to their aid. What’s beautiful about the story is the way the entire Quaker community recognized a moral wrong and then banded together, taking definitive but nonviolent action to stop it. Although the novel’s message—“that all of us frightened people are sent to this Earth to help each other”—is lovely and empowering, sadly the story itself is rather slow and the morally upright characters, though good and true, are on the dreary side. It does capture the flavor of the period though, and should be a valuable window by which children can view a little known historical event. (Historical fiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7614-5069-6
Page Count: 108
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2000
A beautiful and informative entry in the Wonders of the World series in which Mann (The Brooklyn Bridge, 1996, not reviewed, etc.) meticulously outlines the building of the Great Wall as well as the thousands of years of conflict that prompted it. Detailed illustrations chronicle the Chinese people's attempts to foil violence by erecting the wall; millions of Chinese lugged stones, day in and day out, for over 200 years, to build a fortress 30 feet high over thousands of miles. A large center fold-out illustrates what an attack on the Great Wall might have looked like in the mountains north of Peking. A timeline illustrates Mongol invasions in the 13th century; a map shows the location of the Great Wall dividing China from the north where the Mongols and the Manchus roamed the steppe. A thoughtful discussion about the life of nomadic tribes on the steppe and their difference from the Chinese people illustrates how cultures distrust and fear one another: ``Order, harmony, and stability were important to the Chinese. They looked down on the nomads and their wandering, warlike ways. They called them barbarians.'' Mann makes thrilling the ironies of the Great Wall: It never fulfilled its purpose of providing safety by exclusion, and contributed to the downfall of the Ming dynasty because of its enormous cost. (maps, chronology, index) (Nonfiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-9650493-2-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Firefly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1997
From Columbus to Selena, from lima beans to “Loisada,” Ochoa encompasses a diverse Hispanic American historical and cultural experience, using the question-and-answer format that is a series (Sue Heinemann’s The New York Public Library Amazing Women in History, p. 112, etc.) standard, and which caters to short attention spans. It makes browsing easy, and allows Ochoa to focus more closely on selected topics with frequent sidebars. In a vital, knowledgeable sweep through the history and immigration patterns of several regions and countries, including Spain, he takes as his major theme their distinctive characters. Not intended for sustained research, this has two bibliographies, one with web sites, to give readers a jump start on their studies. (index, b&w photos, not seen, glossary) (Nonfiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Sept. 18, 1998
ISBN: 0-471-19204-X
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Wiley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1998
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