Catnip for scandal junkies, with a bit of historical perspective stirred in.
A gleefully explicit catalogue of the past century’s headline-grabbing bad behavior.
Aimed at readers who don’t need to be told who Brangelina is but may be hazy on “twisted besties” Leopold and Loeb or even Monica Lewinsky, this edutaining survey presents a wide-angle array of murders, sexual follies, controversial trials, race violence, political corruption and general envelope-pushing from the 1906 killing of Stanford White on. Each of the chronologically arranged entries opens with a capsule “Scoop” followed by a slightly fuller account under a “What Went Down” header. Along with a small black-and-white photo and one or two sidebar quotes, the author tacks on subsequent developments, sometimes-perceptive suggestions about “Why We Still Care” and a short roster of similar incidents in recent history. Though she misspells “Symbionese” and repeatedly awards FDR only three Presidential wins, in general Fryd presents reasonably accurate summaries of events and issues while giving all sides of the more muddled conflicts at least a nod. Additional cred is provided by a teen panel of editorial advisors.
Catnip for scandal junkies, with a bit of historical perspective stirred in. (index) (Nonfiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9827322-0-5
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Zest/Orange Avenue
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
Considerably more edgy satire than Happily Ever After here; a bracing take for teens.
From Puss in Boots’ swaggering descendant “Puss-in-Trainers” to the titular break-and-enter artist caught on security cameras, Agard lays urban-inflected modern twists on 29 folkloric characters.
Written in rhyme or free verse with hip-hop cadences, the poems are nearly all in first person and range in tone from funny or acid (“Bring on your shining armour, dude. / I’ll be your damsel in distress with attitude”), to dark, even threatening. Many offer fresh approaches to the familiar, such as quick portraits of Cinderella in biker leathers and Iron Jack as an emotionally vulnerable Gulf War vet. An apple and a magic mirror provide unusual points of view about their assigned roles, as do “Two Ugly Sisters” who defiantly declare that they “won’t be face-down in no make-up kit / We give the thumbs-up to hair in the armpit,” but end with a sobering “Never mind the eye, we enchant the ear / From our ugly mouths come song, come prayer.” The poems are printed in a variety of typefaces, and Kitamura’s heavily inked black-and-white cartoons or silhouettes likewise change looks while adding appropriately dark, angular, energetic visual notes.
Considerably more edgy satire than Happily Ever After here; a bracing take for teens. (Poetry. 12-16)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-84780-183-8
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
Even rabid fans of Lennon or the 1960s will find new information and angles in this searching study.
On the verge of her 80th birthday (Feb. 18, 2013), Ono steps out of her iconic late husband’s shadow for a sympathetic profile.
The authors present her as a groundbreaking creative artist whose work has been misunderstood, not to say derided, for decades and who was unjustly vilified as the woman who broke up the Beatles. They describe a comfortable upbringing in Japan and the United States, childhood experiences in World War II and artistic development as part of New York’s avant-garde scene in the 1950s and early ’60s. The book goes on to chronicle her relationships with various husbands, including “soul mate” John Lennon, and her two children, life as a peace-activist celebrity in the ’70s, and (in much less detail) her activities, honors and exhibitions after Lennon’s death. The account is occasionally trite (“Yoko and John were stressed to the max”) or platitudinous, and it’s unlikely to persuade younger (or any) readers to appreciate Yoko’s creations—which run to works like an 80-minute film of naked rumps walking by and sets of chess pieces that are all the same color—as great art. Nevertheless, it does impart a good sense of conceptual and performance art’s purposes and expressions along with a detailed portrait of a complex woman who for several reasons has a significant place in our cultural history.
Even rabid fans of Lennon or the 1960s will find new information and angles in this searching study. (photos, timeline to 2009, resource lists) (Biography. 12-15)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0444-4
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
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