A sad collection of biographies of people who were regarded during their lifetimes as freaks. Despite Drimmer's thesis that these unusual people overcame their abnormalities, all of them experienced loneliness and unhappiness, with one of them committing suicide. Four of the stories take place during the early 20th century: Jack Earle, a giant whose father encouraged him to join the circus; Ishi, the so-called last Indian in North America; Daisy and Violet, Siamese twins who performed in vaudeville; and Ota Benga, the first Pygmy brought to the US. A fifth story, about Victor, a wild boy found in the south of France in 1800, seems out of place with the first four, unless the definition of an ``extraordinary'' person is someone who remained ``fearful, half-wild, and unable to learn to speak'' during his short lifetime. Jack Earle's father told him that ``being a freak is only a state of mind.'' Readers will sense the real tragedy, however, of lives that were led outside the mainstream, and the despair connected with being so different. (b&w photos and illustrations, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-689-31921-5
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
Katz (Black Women of the Old West, 1995, etc.) takes fascinating material—the tale of free and escaped African-Americans who helped colonize the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys from the late 18th-century to the middle of the 19th century—and gives it a textbook treatment. In this gathering of details and events in the lives of real people who settled the area, he presents a full history of the contributions of determined people who established schools and churches, fought slavery, and won basic civil rights. The many black-and-white period drawings and photographs help establish the people in the narrative and the facts surrounding their lives. The facts alone, one after the other, add up to a cogent picture of the growing wealth and importance of African-Americans in US history, but the dry presentation may doom it to use solely for reference or as a supplement to more inviting works. (index, not seen, maps, charts, notes, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 12-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-689-81410-0
Page Count: 171
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
This is a thoughtful and well-written biography of Einstein, a complicated man whose life and work Severance (Thomas Jefferson, 1998, etc.) chronicles clearly and firmly. He explains how Einstein challenged the established thinkers (Galileo and Newton) in the field of physics, after a childhood that included his parents’ concerns that their son might be mildly retarded. Even “his teachers considered him a bit stupid,” for he studied only what interested him and lacked “obedience and discipline.” Also covered is Einstein’s father’s gift of a compass, an object that seemed to unlock deeply hidden things about the universe. Severance sets forth Einstein’s contradictions as a man, but readers will appreciate this thinker’s role in constructing the framework of modern physics and extending science’s information on the universe. (b&w photos, chronology, bibliography, index) (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: Aug. 23, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-93100-2
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1999
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