Just as 11-year-old Franny Chapman squabbles with her once-best friend in their neighborhood near Andrews Air Force Base, outside of Washington, D.C., President Kennedy and Chairman Khrushchev are also at odds. Franny’s spot-on “Heavens to Murgatroyd” dialogue captures the trepidation as the world holds its breath during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Adding to the pressure are her college-student, activist older sister, who may be a spy, her aspiring-astronaut younger brother, who refuses to eat, her steely, chain-smoking mother, who has inexplicably burst into tears, her often-absent pilot father, now spending long days on base, and her PTSD-suffering, World War I–veteran Uncle Otts, who’s digging up the front yard to build a bomb shelter. Wiles’s “documentary novel,” based on her own childhood memories and the first in The Sixties Project trilogy, has a striking scrapbook feel, with ingeniously selected and placed period photographs, cartoons, essays, song lyrics, quotations, advertisements and “duck and cover” instructions interspersed through the narrative. References to duct tape (then newly invented), McDonald’s and other pop culture lend authenticity to this phenomenal story of the beginnings of radical change in America. (historical note, author’s note, bibliography) (Historical fiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-10605-4
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2010
A deeply satisfying story of longing and hard work fulfilled, inspired by an obscure historical photograph. Bee loves the railroad: the sound and color, the sweep past the wide world into the cities, the wonderful engine names, such as True Heart and the Coyote Special. When her parents die, she finds that, with eight siblings to care for, loading freight for the Union Pacific in Cheyenne in 1893 pays far better than taking in wash. She’s strong, and gets hired to load the trains. But what Bee loves most is to pepper Ole Pete, the engineer, with questions; he lets her drive the train a bit, back it up, and couple it to other cars. When Bee gets the chance to drive a train, she takes two of her female crew to stoke the engines, “blowing my whistle for all the sky to hear.” The language is homespun and direct, with Bee’s desire and love for the railroad clear. The text faces the full-page illustrations; occasional double-page spreads float the text on top of the image, as in one dramatic scene where ghostly wagon trains parallel the train on its run. The mixed media paintings have a burnished quality, while the textures are beautifully tactile. The text never mentions Bee’s gender, but Moss provides a note about her inspiration and preserves another tessera from the mosaic of women’s history. A rousing and romantic tale. (Picture book. 5-10)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201344-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A book of the basic teachings of Buddha, presented through a collection of six classic, simple tales. When a monkey takes refuge from a monsoon in a cave, he happens upon a group of bickering animals—a monkey, lion, turtle, jackal, and dove. Before the fighting becomes too fierce, a small statue of Buddha begins to glow in the darkest corner. To pass the time—and to stop the fighting—wise Buddha spins enlightening stories of tolerance, endurance, sagacity, truthfulness, kindness, and clarity. Buddha recounts his past lives in many forms—from monkey to pigeon to willow tree—to his captive listeners. Such straightforward yet profound tales combine with the art and design for an example of bookmaking that is aesthetically pleasing in every way. Color-washed linoprints cleverly distinguish the stories from the black-and-white narrative frame, while an informative afterword offers brief background detail about Buddha and these six “birth stories” known as Jatakas. (Picture book/folklore. 4-7)
Pub Date: April 8, 1999
ISBN: 0-374-33548-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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