Brisk and appealing historical vignettes, as readable as they are revealing.
Biographical highlights and sidelights from a dozen, mostly veteran, nonfiction authors.
Originally posted on the Nonfiction Minute blog, these short essays focus less on biographical details than on why their subjects are worth knowing. Cheryl Harness, for instance, looks at George Washington Carver’s intrepid early efforts to make a go of it as a Kansas chicken farmer; elsewhere she suggests some of Mary Shelley’s likely sources of inspiration for Frankenstein and pays tribute to the warm friendship between the Marquis de Lafayette and the enslaved African-American James Armistead. Readers in search of role models will find plenty of lesser known possibilities among the usual suspects, such as ancient Egyptian Renaissance Man Imhotep (profiled by Jim Whiting), Sarah Keys Evans (by Amy Nathan), an African-American woman who preceded Rosa Parks in refusing to move to the back of a bus, Cal Rodgers (by Roxie Munro), a white pilot who was the first to fly across the U.S., or even George Frederic Handel (by Andrea Warren), the German composer who donated proceeds from his Messiah (and much more) to the London Foundling Hospital. Hellegouarch fills gaps in the array of period photos, documents, and art with mildly dramatic watercolor scenes, and each entry ends with a few leads to further information (often one of the writer’s own works).
Brisk and appealing historical vignettes, as readable as they are revealing. (writers’ profiles, index) (Collective biography. 10-13)Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-63322-377-6
Page Count: 147
Publisher: Seagrass/Quarto
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats.
Why should grown-ups get all the historical, scientific, athletic, cinematic, and artistic glory?
Choosing exemplars from both past and present, Mitchell includes but goes well beyond Alexander the Great, Anne Frank, and like usual suspects to introduce a host of lesser-known luminaries. These include Shapur II, who was formally crowned king of Persia before he was born, Indian dancer/professional architect Sheila Sri Prakash, transgender spokesperson Jazz Jennings, inventor Param Jaggi, and an international host of other teen or preteen activists and prodigies. The individual portraits range from one paragraph to several pages in length, and they are interspersed with group tributes to, for instance, the Nazi-resisting “Swingkinder,” the striking New York City newsboys, and the marchers of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade. Mitchell even offers would-be villains a role model in Elagabalus, “boy emperor of Rome,” though she notes that he, at least, came to an awful end: “Then, then! They dumped his remains in the Tiber River, to be nommed by fish for all eternity.” The entries are arranged in no evident order, and though the backmatter includes multiple booklists, a personality quiz, a glossary, and even a quick Braille primer (with Braille jokes to decode), there is no index. Still, for readers whose fires need lighting, there’s motivational kindling on nearly every page.
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats. (finished illustrations not seen) (Collective biography. 10-13)Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-751813-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Puffin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
The life of Manjiro Nakahama, also known as John Mung, makes an amazing story: shipwrecked as a young fisherman for months on a remote island, rescued by an American whaler, he became the first Japanese resident of the US. Then, after further adventures at sea and in the California gold fields, he returned to Japan where his first-hand knowledge of America and its people earned him a central role in the modernization of his country after its centuries of peaceful isolation had ended. Expanding a passage from her Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun (1985, Newbery Honor), Blumberg not only delivers an absorbing tale of severe hardships and startling accomplishments, but also takes side excursions to give readers vivid pictures of life in mid-19th-century Japan, aboard a whaler, and amidst the California Gold Rush. The illustrations, a generous mix of contemporary photos and prints with Manjiro’s own simple, expressive drawings interspersed, are at least as revealing. Seeing a photo of Commodore Perry side by side with a Japanese artist’s painted portrait, or strange renditions of a New England town and a steam train, based solely on Manjiro’s verbal descriptions, not only captures the unique flavor of Japanese art, but points up just how high were the self-imposed barriers that separated Japan from the rest of the world. Once again, Blumberg shows her ability to combine high adventure with vivid historical detail to open a window onto the past. (source note) (Biography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2001
ISBN: 0-688-17484-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
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