A standout among writing guides, valuable for its sage and friendly encouragement and for the sheer fun of hanging out with...
Advice on writing from one of the best writers around.
“I’m a writer and I’m on your side,” Gantos says, as if he’s putting an arm around a young writer’s shoulder and guiding them through a door to a new life. With a snappy voice, his own funny ink drawings, and expertise drawn from a career full of great books, he covers just about everything: where to find ideas and characters, how to structure a story, why to keep a journal, and even what to write with. Every step of the way he includes examples from his own writing. As humorous as he is, Gantos is authoritative and serious about his craft, careful to include every building block for constructing a good story—characters, setting, problem, action, crisis, resolution, and the need for a double ending (physical and emotional). Chapter 2 (“Getting Started”) ought to be read by all teachers and parents: it’s a manifesto on how to raise a reader (and writer) by reading aloud excellent picture books to young children and placing good books in the hands of children as they get older, and he offers a handy list of just what some of those books should be. While his list of picture books is not a particularly diverse one, the middle-grade titles suggested are nicely inclusive.
A standout among writing guides, valuable for its sage and friendly encouragement and for the sheer fun of hanging out with Jack. (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-374-30456-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In no particular order and using no set criteria for his selections, veteran sportscaster Berman pays tribute to an arbitrary gallery of baseball stars—all familiar names and, except for the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez, retired from play for decades. Repeatedly taking the stance that statistics are just numbers but then reeling off batting averages, home-run totals, wins (for pitchers) and other data as evidence of greatness, he offers career highlights in a folksy narrative surrounded by photos, side comments and baseball-card–style notes in side boxes. Readers had best come to this with some prior knowledge, since he casually drops terms like “slugging percentage,” “dead ball era” and “barnstorming” without explanation and also presents a notably superficial picture of baseball’s history—placing the sport’s “first half-century” almost entirely in the 1900s, for instance, and condescendingly noting that Jackie Robinson’s skill led Branch Rickey to decide that he “was worthy of becoming the first black player to play in the majors.” The awesome feats of Ruth, Mantle, the Gibsons Bob and Josh, Hank Aaron, Ty Cobb and the rest are always worth a recap—but this one’s strictly minor league. (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4022-3886-4
Page Count: 138
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
The use of surveillance balloons in the Civil War has been chronicled to some extent in such books for young readers as Thomas B. and Roger McBride Allen's Mr. Lincoln's High-Tech War (2009) and Paul Janeczko's Dark Game (2010), but none has covered the subject with as much depth and detail as this engaging story of how the enterprising Lowe, already famous as an aeronaut at the outbreak of the Civil War, convinced President Lincoln of the value of using balloons to spy on the Confederate army. For two years, Lowe led a corps of balloonists who counted rebel soldiers, monitored troop movements and directed artillery fire against enemy positions. The effectiveness of the corps prompted the Confederates to make the balloons targets of sharpshooters and page saboteurs. Using Civil War photographs, other archival images and a variety of primary sources, Jarrow reveals the clashes Lowe had with high-ranking Union officers, dangers the balloonists faced and the value of the intelligence the corps provided, thus offering readers rich insight into a little-known dimension of the Civil War. (timeline, source notes, bibliography, further reading and websites, index) (Nonfiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59078-719-9
Page Count: 109
Publisher: Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
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