A sterling educational text and a memorable commemoration of female trailblazers, past and present.
An homage to prominent women of the world who made a difference.
Hillary Clinton (What Happened, 2017) collaborates with her daughter, Chelsea (Don’t Let Them Disappear: 12 Endangered Species Across the Globe, 2019), in this celebration of more than 100 pioneering women who inspired them most. Written as a conversation between the distinguished mother-and-daughter team, the book profiles women whom the Clintons have found to be greatly inspirational not only to them, but to the world, based on their contributions to global society and female empowerment. The book is attractively designed and arranged based on the women’s areas of knowledge and expertise. The opening section features women the authors have been personally inspired by. In addition to profiles of intergenerational extended family members, the authors also appreciate the legacies of Helen Keller, Anne Frank, and outspoken 1964 presidential candidate Margaret Chase Smith. The Clintons’ informative back and forth also affords readers a closer glimpse into the specific, myriad ways both of their lives were influenced by these innovators. Elsewhere, they dive into achievements in a wide variety of fields, including education, literature, environmentalism, sports, diplomacy, and activism, eloquently illuminating their subjects’ years of valiant heroism in the face of massive obstacles. The narrative range is vast and features distinctly inspiring women such as Shirley Chisholm, “the first woman to run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination”; Ellen DeGeneres, who leveled homophobic speculation by coming out publicly in 1997; Rosa May Billinghurst, a leading British suffragist in early-20th-century England; and Fraidy Reiss, the founder of Unchained at Last, an organization that fights against child marriage. Overall, the collection—which also features Harriet Tubman, Rachel Carson, Clara Barton, Jane Goodall, Maya Angelou, Temple Grandin, and Malala Yousafzai, among many other major figures—will bond optimistic readers together in remembrance of the major contributions of a sisterhood that is smartly and accessibly presented by the Clintons.
A sterling educational text and a memorable commemoration of female trailblazers, past and present.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-7841-2
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
SEEN & HEARD
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