Suitable for avid younger historians and older reluctant readers.
Traditional journalistic questions are applied to Abraham Lincoln’s assassination and funeral, as well as the roundup and executions of John Wilkes Booth and his associates.
Facing the title page is a drawing of John Wilkes Booth, smoking gun in hand, with a speech bubble: “I do not repent the blow I struck.” On the first text page is a watercolor cartoon of Lincoln and the sentence, “It was a rare, cheerful day for President Abraham Lincoln.” Next, the Confederate flag hangs in defeat, as text explains both Lincoln’s satisfaction with the Civil War’s results and how this filled John Wilkes Booth “with seething rage.” Readers then learn about Booth’s failed kidnapping scheme, his cadre of supporters, and the bungled attempts by his cohorts to kill the vice president and secretary of state, which are contrasted with Booth’s successful mission. The text includes often underreported facts about the era’s political climate, such as the possibly hundreds of people killed if “caught gloating over the murder.” Details such as having to lay out the long-bodied Lincoln diagonally on his deathbed and the clues used to track down the escaped Booth are integrated in fast-paced, accessible language. The atmospheric illustrations are void of some of the text’s gorier details, but the topic’s general handling, which assumes considerable historical knowledge, suggests an older audience than the publisher’s recommended 6-10. Sadly, there are no child-friendly suggestions for further reading.
Suitable for avid younger historians and older reluctant readers. (bibliography) (Nonfiction. 9-12)Pub Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-59643-224-6
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2014
Sentimental of plotline but informative and breathlessly paced.
The seventh (chronologically earliest) entry in the series pitches a young former slave into the middle of the Civil War’s pivotal battle.
Having saved a Union soldier named Henry Green by hurling a live skunk at his Confederate captors, young Thomas finds himself and his little sister Birdie adopted by Green’s unit. Three weeks, an ambush and a quick march later, Thomas unexpectedly finds himself in the thick of the fighting—possibly on Missionary Ridge itself, though the author doesn’t provide a specific location. Rather than go into details of the battle, Tarshis offers broad overviews of slavery and the war’s course (adding more about the latter in an afterword that includes the text of the Gettysburg Address). She folds these into quick pictures of military camp life and the violence-laced fog of war. Afterward, Thomas and Birdie are reunited with their older cousin Clem, who had been sold away, and make good on a promise to Green (who doesn’t survive) to settle with his Vermont parents and attend the school taught by his sweetheart.
Sentimental of plotline but informative and breathlessly paced. (Q&A, annotated reading list) (Historical fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-45936-5
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A rangy but concise slice of history, it’s likely to encourage readers to take the next step in learning about medieval...
A waggishly illuminating pictorial tour of the Middle Ages.
Medieval history is full of good stuff—the Silk Road, the bubonic plague, Vikings—and Shapiro touches on a fair amount, concentrating on the area that became known as Europe and the Near East, with brief forays to Cathay. Kinnaird deploys infographics to give readers a sense of numbers: of Viking travels, weapons of warfare or women in the workplace. Shapiro infuses the 1,000-year period with both the foreign and the familiar. Readers may know about diseases, but the scope of the Black Death boggles the mind; medieval class structure—“The life of a young peasant was like that of an old peasant, only poorer”—finds echoes in today’s inequities of wealth. He lays it out well, and Kinnaird provides crisp artwork with a comic-book look and touch of humor. The book gets below the surface on more than one occasion to give depth to such circumstances as rules governing the behavior of nonbelievers and how the plague was spread by Mongols catapulting their dead soldiers—along with their attendant fleas—into cities under siege.
A rangy but concise slice of history, it’s likely to encourage readers to take the next step in learning about medieval times. (Nonfiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-55451-553-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
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