An absorbing eyewitness view of a shocking event wrapped in a fluent, engaging self-portrait.
The young political intern who provided first aid to Congressional Representative Gabrielle Giffords after her shooting, likely saving her life, steps forward to tell his story.
This account—written by Rubin, but based on lengthy interviews and cast in Hernandez’s first person—hits all the right notes. Insisting that he’s not as heroic as people who devote their entire lives to public service (though he vows to do just that), Hernandez describes the attack and immediate aftermath in sharp detail. He then goes on to chronicle the next six months of memorial and other ceremonies, meetings with President Barack Obama and speeches and news interviews by the hundreds as his background and personal details (he is a gay Latino) draw widespread public attention. He rounds out the narrative with snapshots (both textual and visual) of his south Tucson childhood, schooling and experiences in local campaigns, both for others and for himself (running and losing for university student-body president, running and winning for his school board). Throughout, he comes across as self-assured but not full of himself, conscious of but not obsessed with his image and his status as a multiple role model, opinionated but not angry or preachy.
An absorbing eyewitness view of a shocking event wrapped in a fluent, engaging self-portrait. (bibliography) (Memoir. 11-15)Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4424-6228-1
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
Trailing the stampede of Lincoln-bicentennial studies, this profile of “the clan that might have become America’s royal family but instead became America’s cursed family” offers both a wagonload of fascinating period photos and a case study in domestic tragedy and dysfunction. Leading Lincoln scholar Holzer portrays his presidential paterfamilias as an absentee saint—away on business for much of his four sons’ formative years but ever loving and gentle with his notably histrionic wife and an indulgent pushover who let his lads run hog wild. Conversely, though devastated by 3-year-old Eddie’s death in 1850 and 11-year-old Willie’s in 1862, his relations with Robert (the eldest and the only child to live past his teens, presented here as thoroughly unlikable) were distant at best. If the author sometimes hobbles his narrative with fussy details, he also tucks in such intimate touches as samples of homely verse from both parents and children and finishes off with quick looks at all of the direct descendants. A natural companion for Candace Fleming’s fine The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary (2008). (endnotes, adult-level bibliography) (Biography. 11-14)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59078-303-0
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Flawed and no longer groundbreaking in its perspective, this nevertheless offers a readable description of an essential part...
A wrenching account of the injustices the Sioux endured from white men and the battles that ensued, based on Dee Brown’s classic Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.
Brown’s work, considered groundbreaking in 1971, told the painful history of Native Americans in the late-19th century from their perspective. Rather than just shorten the weighty original, Zimmerman draws from chapters about the Sioux as representative of the broken treaties, battles, suffering and death. The fluid chronological adaptation conveys the view that “an overwhelming number” of settlers, soldiers and men in authority were “arrogant, greedy, racist, murderous, and cruel beyond belief,” a conclusion supported by the many well-told accounts of travesties. Except for references to the Civil War, the author offers little historical or social context. He rarely mentions women, although the controversial term “squaw” appears once. The overall effect feels dated, including occasional flowery prose from the original book, such as “the remnants of the once proud woodland Sioux awaited their fate.” Except for material supporting the introduction and epilogue, source notes are not included; readers are referred to the original for Brown's. Photographs, including many by Edward Curtis, and illustrations with useful captions appear frequently in the attractive, open design.
Flawed and no longer groundbreaking in its perspective, this nevertheless offers a readable description of an essential part of American history. (time line, glossary, suggested websites, recommended reading, index) (Nonfiction. 11-15)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9364-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2011
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