In variously rhymed verses as swashbuckling as the figure they celebrate, Lewis tries to flesh out the little that is actually known about the character and career of the most renowned pirate ever. As the poet sticks to the facts, Blackbeard remains a menacing but shadowy figure with a visage “so frightful that it chilled his foes / Straight to the marrowbone.” But Lewis also notes that, until his final fight, there is no evidence that he ever killed anyone, and he evidently lifted the blockade of Charleston, which was his crowning exploit, in exchange for a chest not of loot, but of medical supplies. With notes and captions at the bottom of each balladic entry and illustrations that range from a contemporary portrait to dramatic battle scenes from N.C. Wyeth and other recent artists, this offers an unusual mix of historical roots and rousing rhetoric. Young readers and listeners will fervently agree that, “of all the thieves of the Seven Seas, / No one would ever reach / The height and might / Of the roguish Knight / Of the Black Flag, Edward Teach.” (timeline, afterword, bibliography) (Picture book/poetry. 7-10)
Pub Date: May 9, 2006
ISBN: 0-7922-5585-2
Page Count: 32
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2006
Categories: CHILDREN'S POETRY
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Both technique and imaginative impulse can be found in this useful selection of poems about the literary art.
Starting with the essentials of the English language, the letters of “Our Alphabet,” the collection moves through 21 other poems of different types, meters, and rhyme schemes. This anthology has clear classroom applications, but it will also be enjoyed by individual readers who can pore carefully over playful illustrations filled with diverse children, butterflies, flowers, books, and pieces of writing. Tackling various parts of the writing process, from “How To Begin” through “Revision Is” to “Final Edit,” the poems also touch on some reasons for writing, like “Thank You Notes” and “Writing About Reading.” Some of the poems are funny, as in the quirky, four-line “If I Were an Octopus”: “I’d grab eight pencils. / All identical. / I’d fill eight notebooks. / One per tentacle.” An amusing undersea scene dominated by a smiling, orangy octopus fills this double-page spread. Some of the poems are more focused (and less lyrical) than others, such as “Final Edit” with its ending stanzas: “I check once more to guarantee / all is flawless as can be. / Careless errors will discredit / my hard work. / That’s why I edit. / But I don’t like it. / There I said it.” At least the poet tries for a little humor in those final lines.
Here’s hoping this will inspire many children to joyfully engage in writing. (Picture book/poetry. 7-10)Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68437-362-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Wordsong/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
Categories: CHILDREN'S POETRY
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Black takes time out from chronicling the neighborhood-themed exploits of half-French detective Aimée Leduc to introduce a heroine as American as apple pie.
Kate Rees never expected to see Paris again, especially not under these circumstances. Born and bred in rural Oregon, she earned a scholarship to the Sorbonne, where she met Dafydd, a handsome Welshman who stole her heart. The start of World War II finds the couple stationed in the Orkney Islands, where Kate impresses Alfred Stepney of the War Department with the rifle skills she developed helping her dad and five brothers protect the family’s cattle. After unimaginable tragedy strikes, Stepney recruits Kate for a mission that will allow her to channel her newly ignited rage against the Germans who’ve just invaded France. She’s parachuted into the countryside, where her fluent French should help her blend in. Landing in a field, she hops a milk train to Paris, where she plans to shoot Adolf Hitler as he stands on the steps of Sacre-Coeur. Instead, she kills his admiral and has to flee through the streets of Paris, struggling to hook up with the rescuers who are supposed to extract her. Meanwhile, Gunter Hoffman, a career policeman in a wartime assignment with the Reichssicherheitsdienst security forces, is charged with finding the assassin who dared attempt to kill the Führer. It’s hard to see how it can end well for both the cop and the cowgirl. The heroine’s flight is too episodic to capitalize on Black’s skill at character development, but she’s great at raising readers’ blood pressure.
A killer thriller.Pub Date: April 7, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 360
Publisher: Soho Crime
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2020
Categories: CRIME & LEGAL THRILLER | THRILLER | HISTORICAL THRILLER | HISTORICAL FICTION | SUSPENSE
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Nineteen poems, some rhymed, are paired with So’s (Countdown to Spring, p. 50, etc.) ink drawings. The poems are sometimes dry and sometimes didactic, but most are straightforward and occasionally giddy. So’s art is by turns whimsical, wild, or reticent. The title comes from “Burrows” a poem about the creatures that live under the “roof” of the earth: rabbits, foxes, snakes. The image of a dragon under the volcano in “Dormant Dragons” is beautifully realized as So turns wash and squiggle into the beast. “Winter Solstice” connects a wintry day in America with the first day of summer in Australia most charmingly. In “Go-Betweens”: “They issue warnings / They offer praise / This is trees’ work / and they do it with such uncomplaining grace / it never seems like work at all.” A swath of soft ink and a perfectly rendered rose reflect the turning of the year in “Summer Solstice”—“The richest garden / the greenest trees / will have a different form / wearing withered leaves like memories / of days when it was warm.” Esbensen’s venerable Cold Stars and Fireflies (1984) makes a nice accompaniment. (Poetry. 7-10)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-81094-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2002
Categories: CHILDREN'S POETRY
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