A worthy celebration of a life too little known.
Discover the life of Juan Cavallo, also known as John Horse.
John Horse was a Black Seminole born in 1812. His father was Seminole, and his mother was of Native American and African descent. This book follows the forced nomadic movements of the group as, led by John Horse, they made their way from the Southeastern U.S. to Mexico. Each chapter follows their journey to a new, hopefully safer land only for them to be disappointed again. One of the best-known facts about the Seminole Nation is how they helped with the Underground Railroad and saw themselves as protectors for runaway slaves, confronting the former White enslavers and claiming to be the runaways’ new masters. Aided by archival illustrations, Turner’s straightforward account contextualizes that and other facts, informing readers that the Black Seminole lived as free people, apart from paying a share of their harvest for protection against these incidents. The book is written in an easy-to-digest manner; although it does not go into great detail, it is an excellent introduction to the history of the Seminole, who went from prisoners and slaves in the U.S. to being seen as valuable for their skills at the U.S.–Mexico border. Turner traces the ebbs and flows of politics, from Gen. Thomas Sidney Jesup’s policy of containment that ended the Second Seminole War to U.S. Attorney General John Y. Mason’s cancellation of that scant protection.
A worthy celebration of a life too little known. (timeline, author’s note, source notes, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4933-9
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
Debuting a new series, Krull presents a compelling argument that the great painter of the Renaissance was one of the West’s first real modern scientists. Into the stew of superstition that passed for scientific thought in medieval Europe was born Leonardo, illegitimate and therefore only very sketchily schooled, he grew up largely on his own, rambling around his family’s property and observing nature. The portrait that emerges is of a magpie mind: He studied and thought and wrote about very nearly everything. The breezy text draws heavily from Leonardo’s own writings, discussing his groundbreaking forays into anatomy, water management and flight, always propelled by a commitment to direct scientific observation. That Krull manages, in some 100-plus text pages, to present Leonardo’s scientific accomplishments while at the same time conveying a sense of the man himself—his probable homosexuality is presented frankly, as are his pacifism and the overriding opportunism that had him designing weapons of war for the Duke of Milan—is no mean feat and bodes well for the succeeding volumes in the series. (appendix, bibliography, Web sites, index) (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: July 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-670-05920-X
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2005
In this companion to Portraits of War: Civil War Photographers and Their Work (1998), Sullivan presents an album of the prominent ships and men who fought on both sides, matched to an engrossing account of the war's progress: at sea, on the Mississippi, and along the South's well-defended coastline. In his view, the issue never was in doubt, for though the Confederacy fought back with innovative ironclads, sleek blockade runners, well-armed commerce raiders, and sturdy fortifications, from the earliest stages the North was able to seal off, and then take, one major southern port after another. The photos, many of which were made from fragile glass plates whose survival seems near-miraculous, are drawn from private as well as public collections, and some have never been published before. There aren't any action shots, since mid-19th-century photography required very long exposure times, but the author compensates with contemporary prints, plus crisp battle accounts, lucid strategic overviews, and descriptions of the technological developments that, by war's end, gave this country a world-class navy. He also profiles the careers of Matthew Brady and several less well-known photographers, adding another level of interest to a multi-stranded survey. (source notes, index) (Nonfiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7613-1553-5
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Twenty-First Century/Millbrook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
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