It’s the first night of the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and Arab countries. Three-year-old Ibtisam, hunting frantically for a shoe, loses her family as they join the throng of anxious Palestinians fleeing Ramallah into Jordan. Desperate hours will elapse before the family is reunited. This beautifully written memoir of the author’s childhood on the Israeli-occupied West Bank unfolds against a harsh backdrop of war and cultural displacement. The family endures poverty, separations and frequent relocation. Yet life goes on, by turns surprising, funny, heartbreaking and rich with possibility. In an overcrowded Jordanian school-room housing refugees, Ibtisam discovers Alef, the first letter of the Arab alphabet, and a key unlocking the magical world of written words. Courageous and curious, but by no means always well-behaved, Ibtisam and her brothers find ways to assert their strong wills in defiance of the authorities that govern their lives. The injustices that rankle come at the hands of parents and teachers, not broader geopolitical realities. A compassionate, insightful family and cultural portrait. (map, historical note, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 10+)
Pub Date: May 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-374-35733-1
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Melanie Kroupa/Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
Weaving together architectural, engineering and Native American history, Weitzman tells the fascinating story of how Mohawk Indian ironworkers helped construct the sprawling bridges and towering skyscrapers that dominate our urban landscape. The book begins with a brief but informative history of the Kanien'kéhaka—People of the Flint. Leaders in establishing the League of the Iroquois, a confederation of Indian nations in the New York region, Mohawks had a longstanding reputation for their sense of tight-knit community, attraction to danger and love for physical challenge, qualities that served them well when hired in the late 1800s to do the most arduous work in railroad and bridge construction. With the advent of the skyscraper, Mohawks possessing agility that seemed gravity-defying worked hundreds of feet above the ground. They were not immune to tragedy, and the author discusses in detail the collapse of the Québec Bridge that killed 31 Mohawk workers. Illustrated with black-and-white photographs that capture the daring spirit of these heroic workers, the concise, captivating account offers great insight into the little-known but considerable role Native Americans played in our architectural and engineering achievements. (glossary, bibliography, source notes, index) (Nonfiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59643-162-1
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Flash Point/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
Percy Jackson & Co. have aroused an interest in Classical (Greek and Roman) mythology, making this collection especially timely. In this marvelous re-creation of myth from Ovid, the late Mitchell has rewritten them, as he says in the introduction, “to make them more like themselves.” The language is simple and contemporary, moving from rhyme to free verse to prose and back again. The words are marvelously apropos, describing Bacchus as “all belly and beard” or rhyming “transmogrifications” with “grasshopperations.” All of these stories explore mystery: the origins of flowers, mountains, lakes. Pygmalion, Persephone, Midas and Arachne all appear here. The gods, being lusty and capricious sorts, are allowed the freedom of their appetites. Lee, famed illustrator of Middle Earth, makes men and women, gods and beasts, sea, sky and leaf shimmer on the page. The last image is of a broken helmet and columned ruin next to an open book nestled in a profusion of wildflowers, elegantly echoing (Echo is here, too) the closing lines, “my words will live / while people love them.” (dramatis personae, notes, pronunciation guide) (Mythology. 12 & up)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-84580-536-1
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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