Short pieces that rely more on wishful lore and received knowledge than historical research and evidence.
A potpourri of pieces from a personal, patriotic point of view for “the young and young at heart.”
Debut author Moss offers short “tidbits” (or “bites”) about historical people, places, things, and events in this collection. The author introduces each entry with a brief selection of original verse, followed by an equally epigrammatic explanation (“What can I say about Lincoln? He was a great man who genuinely cared for the people and this country”). After entries on Christopher Columbus, Ponce de Léon, and the Pilgrims, the rest of the “bites” relate to the history of the United States proper, from George Washington to the first man on the moon. A personal section on World War II, including entries on rationing, “My ‘Victory Garden’ and the War Effort,” and V-J Day, is the highlight of the text, as it focuses on Moss’ firsthand experiences as a child during the war. The accounts are presented roughly in chronological order, and accompanied by artwork, photographs, and illustrations from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, as well as photographs by the author. However, the sequence is flawed; for example, the book introduces Washington as the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army (1775) before Benjamin Franklin’s kite experiment (1752). Furthermore, the poetry has no particular rhyme scheme, meter, or shared form. Topic choices range from the expected (Paul Revere) to the puzzling (“The Minstrel Show”), and the length of an entry seemingly bears no connection to its importance. For instance, Abraham Lincoln merits five lines of verse and two lines of exposition, while a selection on “Fun Words” has five lines of verse and more than a dozen lines about a Native American word (skookum), a name (Winnemucca), and a made-up word. Some comments show an antiquated, romanticized, and sometimes ahistorical slant, as in a description of Paiute leader Winnemucca (“He welcomed the white men when they arrived, but they were suspicious of him because he was an Indian”). The book also lacks a bibliography.
Short pieces that rely more on wishful lore and received knowledge than historical research and evidence.Pub Date: June 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4897-0205-0
Page Count: 98
Publisher: LifeRichPublishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Marrin’s biography of our first president is packed with information, but is problematic in its presentation. In his characteristically epic style, he portrays an intriguing George Washington: militarily inexperienced, socially retreating, but with a hard edge that helped him to gain wisdom through his mistakes and earn respect as a commander. Copiously documented, the narrative should inspire readers to learn more about Washington. But Marrin undercuts his own authority with several stylistic problems. He regularly uses sweeping statements that, without clarification or context, are debatable (“Great Britain ruled the mightiest empire in all of human history”), or illogical, e.g., “Had it not been for Charles Lee, Washington might have won the war that day. Because of Lee, it would drag on for another five years.” (Lee may well have kept the war from ending that day, but he himself did not have anything to do with its ultimate length.) In an unusual comparison he suggests that “a war dance was like a ‘pep rally’ before a college football game.” He relies on the present tense to lend drama to his scenes, in a way that can only be considered fiction (“At once, a plan formed in the British General’s mind”), or that makes an interpretation but presents it as fact (“Someone, undoubtedly without his [Washington’s] permission, had driven a pole into the ground amid the corpses”). Marrin’s style makes for dramatic reading here and there, but his narrative is long and often bogged down in details, and he eventually undermines any dramatic tension by overusing his tricks. The book is well illustrated on nearly every page with black-and-white reproductions of etchings, drawings, and maps; notes, a bibliography, and index (not seen) complete it. Marrin’s book may be useful to young readers for its extent of documented information, but they may find better reading elsewhere. (Nonfiction. 12+)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-525-46268-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
Logically pointing out that the American cowboy archetype didn’t spring up from nowhere, Sandler, author of Cowboys (1994) and other volumes in the superficial, if luxuriously illustrated, “Library of Congress Book” series, looks back over 400 years of cattle tending in North America. His coverage ranges from the livestock carried on Columbus’s second voyage to today’s herding-by-helicopter operations. Here, too, the generous array of dramatic early prints, paintings, and photos are more likely to capture readers’ imaginations than the generality-ridden text. But among his vague comments about the characters, values, and culture passed by Mexican vaqueros to later arrivals from the Eastern US, Sadler intersperses nods to the gauchos, llaneros, and other South American “cowmen,” plus the paniolos of Hawaii, and the renowned African-American cowboys. He also decries the role film and popular literature have played in suppressing the vaqueros’ place in the history of the American West. He tackles an uncommon topic, and will broaden the historical perspective of many young cowboy fans, but his glance at modern vaqueros seems to stop at this country’s borders. Young readers will get a far more detailed, vivid picture of vaquero life and work from the cowboy classics in his annotated bibliography. (Notes, glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2001
ISBN: 0-8050-6019-7
Page Count: 116
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2000
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