A patchwork production, far less seaworthy than, for instance, Sally Walker’s two titles on the subject.
The story of the first attack submarine’s drastically brief career and, nearly a century and a half later, rediscovery.
Even though it was, as the author artlessly puts it, “well-designed and well-crafted in the American spirit of invention,” the H.L. Hunley sank repeatedly in tests and never came back from its first mission in 1864. Rather than go into details about how the submarine worked (sort of), Hawk opts to extend her simply written version of its exploits with tangentially related chapters on the battle of Shiloh, the end of the Civil War, and an undocumented (she admits) legend that romantically links a gold coin found in the wreck with the sub’s captain, George Dixon, and a Southern belle named Queenie Bennet. Likewise, Wyrick’s uncaptioned reconstructions of battle scenes and the submarine underwater (which are not always placed near the actions they describe) don’t serve quite as well as the more informative period views of the vessel and its interior that have been used to illustrate other treatments. The account switches to photos and does go into somewhat more detail when describing how the wreck was found in 1995, raised in 2000, and transported to a lab; in a final chapter, a conservator and an archaeologist describe their still-ongoing restoration work.
A patchwork production, far less seaworthy than, for instance, Sally Walker’s two titles on the subject. (map, resource lists) (Nonfiction. 7-10)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61117-788-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Young Palmetto Books
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
A simplistic treatment for an audience likely unfamiliar with its subject.
Ehrlich renders an admiring portrait of Cather, focusing on the relationship between her writing and the places she lived and visited.
Willa and family followed her grandparents from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883. Willa was lonely, but she had a pony and freedom to roam. When her father traded farming for real estate, the family moved to Red Cloud. She read keenly, enjoying adult friends, who "were more interesting than children and...talked to Willa in a serious and cultured way." During her freshman year at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, an essay’s publication changed Willa's path from doctor to writer. Cather worked at magazines in Pittsburgh and New York. The writer Sarah Orne Jewett urged her to focus on her own writing. Journeys to Europe, the American Southwest, back to Nebraska and Virginia—all resonated in her accomplished fiction. Ehrlich writes with little inflection, sometimes adopting Cather's viewpoint. The Civil War and slavery are briefly treated. (Cather's maternal grandparents were slaveholders.) Native Americans receive only incidental mentions: that Red Cloud is named for the Oglala Lakota chief and that, as children, Willa and her brothers had "imagined themselves in Indian country in the Southwest desert. What adventures they would have!" Minor's watercolor-and-gouache pictures depict bucolic prairie scenes and town and city life; meadowlarks appear frequently.
A simplistic treatment for an audience likely unfamiliar with its subject. (timeline, thumbnail biographies of American women writers of Cather's time, bibliography) (Biography. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-689-86573-2
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
An attractive volume introducing an important American to young readers.
Jane Addams’ life was dedicated to helping others.
Jane Addams knew how it felt to be sad, lonely, and in pain. Her mother died when Jane was 2, and Jane contracted spinal tuberculosis at age 4, leaving her with a crooked back and toes that pointed in. “She felt like the ugly duckling / in her storybook: / different, / unwanted, / hopeless.” So, when she rode into town with her father and saw the poverty other people faced—“the rundown shacks, / sad, hungry parents, / cold, barefoot children”—the beginnings of her social conscience were stirred. She got a good education, traveled throughout Europe, and committed herself to helping the poor. Toynbee Hall, a settlement house in London, inspired her to establish the now-famous Hull House in Chicago. At first Jane was beloved, the New York Evening Post even suggesting she run for president. But Addams became controversial for her peace efforts during World War I, and the FBI labeled her “the Most Dangerous Woman in America.” However, she went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Slade tells the purposively inspiring story with a poetic flair, and Ratterree’s pale, evocatively washed-out watercolor illustrations are richly detailed (though hands seem to be her nemesis as an artist). They make the most of the book’s oversize trim, giving space to the free-verse text. A “More about Dangerous Jane” section mostly retells the story, with a few new details added.
An attractive volume introducing an important American to young readers. (Picture book/biography. 7-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-56145-913-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Peachtree
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
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