Mann (The Great Wall, 1997, etc.) offers the older end of the picture-book set a concrete, engaging narrative on another of the man-made wonders of the world. Opening her tale with the failure of the French, under Ferdinand de Lesseps, to construct their own canal in Panama, Mann quickly moves into the details of President Teddy Roosevelt’s obsession with the project; he broke international law by encouraging and aiding Panama’s rebellion for independence in 1903. The resulting treaty—though unfair to Panama—gave Roosevelt all the leverage he needed, and despite yellow fever and malaria, America soon poured thousands of workers and millions of dollars into this enterprise. While there were excellent living conditions for American workers in Panama, those conditions were not duplicated for Caribbean laborers: “Black Caribbeans suffered a higher rate of death from accidents and disease than any other group.” Rangel’s lavish full-color illustrations capture the immense scale of the canal’s construction, from the damming of the Chagres River to the construction of the locks on a four-page, fold-out spread. Mann and Rangel have created an exceptional resource for the classroom, as well as an epic piece of storytelling. (maps, diagrams, index) (Picture book/nonfiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-9650493-4-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Firefly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1998
It took four weeks for illustrations of scenes from the US’s Civil War battles to make it from the front lines to readers’ hands; Morrison (Cheetah, 1998, etc.) explains that process in his uniquely handsome book. Morrison introduces the fictional artist, William Forbes, commissioned by the fictional Burton’s Illustrated News to follow the Union Army into battle at Bull Run. Throughout the day’s fighting Forbes makes quick sketches; it is risky business, and he is often in mortal peril. That night he makes a more complete drawing, which is handed to a courier and taken back to the Burton offices. There, engravers set to work translating Forbes’s drawing to a grid of wood blocks (Morrison includes interesting incidentals along the way, giving the process its due). The images are converted to electrotype, whereafter it is finally ready for the operators and pressman. Shortly after that, the newsboys are seen hawking the illustrated weekly, containing Forbes’s image a mere month after the actual event. Morrison successfully renders the complexities of illustrating newspapers 150 years ago, and just as successfully conveys that in abandoning the wood block for the photograph, some of the art was sacrificed for speed. (glossary) (Picture book. 6-10)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-91426-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
Leedy (Measuring Penny, 1998, etc.), so deft in making hard facts memorable and setting information into a context that makes sense to children, selects a hodge-podge of details and miscellany to convey a sense of what every state is about, as either a political entity or a place. Into lively, effulgent illustrations she plants a monotonous, forgettable list of items to distinguish every state: a map, the state flower and bird, a whiff of landscape, a glimpse of industry. There’s little about such a list—e.g., wheat, pronghorn, western meadowlark, prairie rose, Sitting Bull—to shout, in that example, “North Dakota” to children. The alphabetical listing—Alaska through Wyoming, four states a spread, with room for the US territories and Washington, D.C.—will help researchers, although it necessarily separates states that have natural geographic or historic connections, such as Vermont and New Hampshire, or West Virginia and Virginia, divided during the Civil War. Readers gain a good, first-line resource, with all the enthusiasm Leedy has made her trademark, but without much chance that they’ll adopt the excitement. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 15, 1999
ISBN: 0-8234-1431-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1999
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