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CAMPING WITH THE PRESIDENT

Name: CAMPING WITH THE PRESIDENT
Author: Ginger Wadsworth
ISBN: 978-1-59078-497-6

by Ginger Wadsworth & illustrated by Karen Dugan ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2009

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In the spring of 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt took a long trip to the far American West and capped his visit with a four-day camping trip through Yosemite with famed naturalist John Muir. Dodging persistent reporters, the men rode through ancient sequoia forests, climbed Glacier Peak and camped at the foot of Bridalveil Fall. As detailed in an author’s note, the trip likely played a significant role in Roosevelt’s later conservation efforts. Wadsworth’s research is sound, her writing spritely and her information interesting, but she reports the story instead of telling it, and she does so in so much detail that the amount of print overwhelms Dugan’s otherwise serviceable watercolors. Half the words would have twice the value; as written, it’s not detailed enough for older readers, who will gravitate toward chapter books, but too much for younger readers and downright daunting as a read-aloud. Some of Roosevelt’s quotes (“I want to drop politics absolutely for four days”) are authentic and sourced; others (“This is bullier yet!”) are “created by the author based upon typical language of Roosevelt”—an unfortunate license. (author’s, biographical notes) (Picture book. 7-10)

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009

ISBN: 978-1-59078-497-6

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2009

Categories:

CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | CHILDREN'S HISTORY | CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
BORN TO DRAW COMICS
by Ginger Wadsworth ; illustrated by Craig Orback

- BOOK REVIEW
POOP DETECTIVES
by Ginger Wadsworth

- BOOK REVIEW
SEASONS OF THE BEAR
by Ginger Wadsworth ; illustrated by Daniel San Souci

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GEORGE CRUM AND THE SARATOGA CHIP

by Gaylia Taylor & illustrated by Frank Morrison ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2006

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Spinning lively invented details around skimpy historical records, Taylor profiles the 19th-century chef credited with inventing the potato chip. Crum, thought to be of mixed Native-American and African-American ancestry, was a lover of the outdoors, who turned cooking skills learned from a French hunter into a kitchen job at an upscale resort in New York state. As the story goes, he fried up the first batch of chips in a fit of pique after a diner complained that his French fries were cut too thickly. Morrison’s schoolroom, kitchen and restaurant scenes seem a little more integrated than would have been likely in the 1850s, but his sinuous figures slide through them with exaggerated elegance, adding a theatrical energy as delicious as the snack food they celebrate. The author leaves Crum presiding over a restaurant (also integrated) of his own, closes with a note separating fact from fiction and also lists her sources. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)

Pub Date: April 1, 2006

ISBN: 1-58430-255-0

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Lee & Low Books

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

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THE STORY OF SALT

by Mark Kurlansky & illustrated by S.D. Schindler ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2006

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The author of Cod’s Tale (2001) again demonstrates a dab hand at recasting his adult work for a younger audience. Here the topic is salt, “the only rock eaten by human beings,” and, as he engrossingly demonstrates, “the object of wars and revolutions” throughout recorded history and before. Between his opening disquisition on its chemical composition and a closing timeline, he explores salt’s sources and methods of extraction, its worldwide economic influences from prehistoric domestication of animals to Gandhi’s Salt March, its many uses as a preservative and industrial product, its culinary and even, as the source for words like “salary” and “salad,” its linguistic history. Along with lucid maps and diagrams, Schindler supplies detailed, sometimes fanciful scenes to go along, finishing with a view of young folk chowing down on orders of French fries as ghostly figures from history look on. Some of Kurlansky’s claims are exaggerated (the Erie and other canals were built to transport more than just salt, for instance), and there are no leads to further resources, but this salutary (in more ways than one) micro-history will have young readers lifting their shakers in tribute. (Picture book/nonfiction. 8-10)