Home sweet home to every president except Washington, the White House has become an emblematic backdrop to history, as well as an old house with a history of its own—and, for both reasons, has been regarded by its changing cast of residents with mixed feelings. O’Connor chronicles its tale with snippets of fact—“Martin Van Buren auctioned off furniture that he thought was ugly”—and sound bites placed around caricaturist Hovland’s cartoon gallery of bewhiskered or clean-shaven men, elegant or dumpy First Ladies, gap-toothed children, rats, pets, and livestock. A number key connects each figure to a caption, and each Chief Executive makes an encore appearance at the end to answer a common question, e.g., “President Taft, how many bathrooms are in the White House?” There are plenty of more systematic histories of House and Office both, but for readers who enjoy the quick-skim approach, this makes an apt companion for the likes of Judith St. George’s So You Want to Be President, illus. by David Small (2000) or Alice Provensen’s The Buck Stops Here (1990). (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-689-86863-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Paula Wiseman/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-44887-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
A clear, understandable account of a young Jewish boy's terrible experiences during the World War II. In 1944, when Eliezer Wiesel was 15, his town of Sighet (then part of Hungary) was invaded by the German army, who forced all the Jews to live in ghettos. From there, the Wiesel family were sent to concentration camps where, with the exception of Elie, they all were killed. Without fanfare but with dignified emphasis, author Pariser describes the cruelties and horrors of Wiesel's life as an inmate, as well as his subsequent liberation by Allied forces and his future vocation as a journalist, author, speaker, and political activist. Photographs from the WW II period establish a mood of somber witness. With its clear, narrative style, useful bibliography, chronology, and index, this is an excellent introduction to what is undeniably one of the darkest periods in modern history. (Nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: Aug. 15, 1994
ISBN: 1-56294-419-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Millbrook
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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