Hilde Rosenzweig and Eli Lax were two of the 1.5 million Jewish children who were victims of the Nazi's ``Final Solution.'' Hilde was not yet ten when Hitler came to power in Germany and her happy childhood was disrupted as she and her family attempted to escape from Nazi persecution. Her brother managed to get away; he went to the United States and fought with the US Army from 1943 to 1946. Hilde and her mother, however, were not permitted to leave Germany. They were gassed on a train when Hilde was 18. Eli was born nine years after Hilde in a village called Zarich, Czechoslovakia. He hoped one day to follow his eldest sister to America, but in 1944 he was taken first to a ghetto and then to Auschwitz, where he died with his father and brother. Eli's sisters survived to tell his story. Adler (A Picture Book of Eleanor Roosevelt, 1991, etc.; A Picture Book of Jackie Robinson, below) provides a surprising amount of information in his brief history. Ritz's washed pictures evoke first a happier then a harrowing time. A sensitive but unsentimental account. (Nonfiction/Picture book. 8-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1994
ISBN: 0-8234-1091-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A pleasing new picture book looks at George Washington’s career through an agricultural lens. Sprinkling excerpts from his letters and diaries throughout to allow its subject to speak in his own voice, the narrative makes a convincing case for Washington’s place as the nation’s First Farmer. His innovations, in addition to applying the scientific method to compost, include a combination plow-tiller-harrow, the popularization of the mule and a two-level barn that put horses to work at threshing grain in any weather. Thomas integrates Washington’s military and political adventures into her account, making clear that it was his frustration as a farmer that caused him to join the revolutionary cause. Lane’s oil illustrations, while sometimes stiff, appropriately portray a man who was happiest when working the land. Backmatter includes a timeline, author’s notes on both Mount Vernon and Washington the slaveholder, resources for further exploration and a bibliography. (Picture book/biography. 8-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-59078-460-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author of Cod’s Tale (2001) again demonstrates a dab hand at recasting his adult work for a younger audience. Here the topic is salt, “the only rock eaten by human beings,” and, as he engrossingly demonstrates, “the object of wars and revolutions” throughout recorded history and before. Between his opening disquisition on its chemical composition and a closing timeline, he explores salt’s sources and methods of extraction, its worldwide economic influences from prehistoric domestication of animals to Gandhi’s Salt March, its many uses as a preservative and industrial product, its culinary and even, as the source for words like “salary” and “salad,” its linguistic history. Along with lucid maps and diagrams, Schindler supplies detailed, sometimes fanciful scenes to go along, finishing with a view of young folk chowing down on orders of French fries as ghostly figures from history look on. Some of Kurlansky’s claims are exaggerated (the Erie and other canals were built to transport more than just salt, for instance), and there are no leads to further resources, but this salutary (in more ways than one) micro-history will have young readers lifting their shakers in tribute. (Picture book/nonfiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-399-23998-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2006
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