Though without the exuberance of Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, Hansen’s big biography does a good job of showing how and why...
The first human on the moon is a nice guy, writes admiring biographer Hansen (History/Auburn Univ.), but one not afraid of fighting and politicking to be the first.
When, on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface from Apollo 11, the spacecraft he commanded, the world united for a minute. Russian communist newspaper Pravda called the crew “three courageous men,” while a Czech commentator said, “This is the America we love, one so totally different from the America that fights in Vietnam.” Even the French joined in, with France-Soir calling the landing “the greatest adventure in the history of humanity.” By Hansen’s account, Armstrong had a certain affect on people; though he was customarily the youngest (and smallest) of his military cohort, he had all the grit, diplomatic skill and tenacity necessary to get things done. He also had a talent for walking away from near-misses with death, both as a carrier-based Navy pilot during the Korean War and as a NASA test pilot in the California desert. Though Hansen can be portentous (noting, for instance, that the etymology of “Neil” is either “cloud” or “champion”), he is not inclined to reflexive hero worship. The Armstrong he presents is capable of scrapping bitterly with hero and fellow test pilot Chuck Yeager (who, Armstrong said, was a good flyer but “seemed to have less interest in precision and getting information and drawing conclusions,” as a test pilot was supposed to), and equally capable of pulling rank (he beat out Buzz Aldrin to be first out Apollo’s door). To his credit, too, Hansen enjoys demolishing myths, showing that the small-town stargazer who supposedly gave Armstrong his start was merely a good self-promoter and that Yeager had nothing on Armstrong in the cool department.
Though without the exuberance of Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, Hansen’s big biography does a good job of showing how and why Armstrong has entered the history books.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-7432-5631-X
Page Count: 848
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A standout immigrant coming-of-age story.
In her first nonfiction book, novelist Grande (Dancing with Butterflies, 2009, etc.) delves into her family’s cycle of separation and reunification.
Raised in poverty so severe that spaghetti reminded her of the tapeworms endemic to children in her Mexican hometown, the author is her family’s only college graduate and writer, whose honors include an American Book Award and International Latino Book Award. Though she was too young to remember her father when he entered the United States illegally seeking money to improve life for his family, she idolized him from afar. However, she also blamed him for taking away her mother after he sent for her when the author was not yet 5 years old. Though she emulated her sister, she ultimately answered to herself, and both siblings constantly sought affirmation of their parents’ love, whether they were present or not. When one caused disappointment, the siblings focused their hopes on the other. These contradictions prove to be the narrator’s hallmarks, as she consistently displays a fierce willingness to ask tough questions, accept startling answers, and candidly render emotional and physical violence. Even as a girl, Grande understood the redemptive power of language to define—in the U.S., her name’s literal translation, “big queen,” led to ridicule from other children—and to complicate. In spelling class, when a teacher used the sentence “my mamá loves me” (mi mamá me ama), Grande decided to “rearrange the words so that they formed a question: ¿Me ama mi mamá? Does my mama love me?”
A standout immigrant coming-of-age story.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-6177-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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