The book’s tonal missteps make it an unnecessary addition to an already crowded field.
This latest addition to the rapidly expanding genre of compilations of biographies of pioneering women focuses on extraordinary teens.
Beginning with Cleopatra in 69 B.C.E. and concluding with 21st-century heroes such as Emma González, readers learn about young women who accomplished extraordinary things as teenagers. Each brief biography is accompanied by appealing full-color illustrations, including a portrait of the subject and inspirational quotes. The book also includes ideas for becoming involved in community activism. While 12 profiles feature nonwhite women, only three are from the global south (Cleopatra, Frida Kahlo, and Malala Yousafzai), thus erasing important historical context for Western readers. The section on African-American poet Phillis Wheatley calls her emancipation a “pleasant surprise” handed to her by a benevolent slave owner. Sacagawea, the Shoshone girl who guided Lewis and Clark on their expedition, is called out for representing “the interests of the U.S. government,” but there is no mention that this same government decimated her people. Particularly unfortunate is the use of an insensitive quote from Lewis’ journal about this likely traumatized young woman—kidnapped at 12 and married to a white man who won her through gambling—to praise her resilience: “ ‘If she has enough to eat and a few trinkets to wear, we believe she would be contented anywhere.’ Which is to say, Sacagawea rolled with the punches.”
The book’s tonal missteps make it an unnecessary addition to an already crowded field. (Nonfiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-20020-4
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Castle Point Books/St. Martin's Press
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of all things martial will echo his “HOOYAH!”—but the troubled aftermath comes in for some attention too.
Abridged but not toned down, this young-readers version of an ex-SEAL sniper’s account (SEAL Team Six, 2011) of his training and combat experiences in Operation Desert Storm and the first Battle of Mogadishu makes colorful, often compelling reading.
“My experiences weren’t always enjoyable,” Wasdin writes, “but they were always adrenaline-filled!” Not to mention testosterone-fueled. He goes on to ascribe much of his innate toughness to being regularly beaten by his stepfather as a child and punctuates his passage through the notoriously hellacious SEAL training with frequent references to other trainees who fail or drop out. He tears into the Clinton administration (whose “support for our troops had sagged like a sack of turds”), indecisive commanders and corrupt Italian “allies” for making such a hash of the entire Somalian mission. In later chapters he retraces his long, difficult physical and emotional recovery from serious wounds received during the “Black Hawk Down” operation, his increasing focus on faith and family after divorce and remarriage and his second career as a chiropractor.
Fans of all things martial will echo his “HOOYAH!”—but the troubled aftermath comes in for some attention too. (acronym/ordinance glossary, adult level reading list) (Memoir. 12-14)Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-250-01643-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A solid and captivating look at these remarkable pioneers of modern fiction.
The wild freedom of the imagination and the heart, and the tragedy of lives ended just as success is within view—such a powerful story is that of the Brontë children.
Reef’s gracefully plotted, carefully researched account focuses on Charlotte, whose correspondence with friends, longer life and more extensive experience outside the narrow milieu of Haworth, including her acquaintance with the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, who became her biographer, revealed more of her personality. She describes the Brontë children’s early losses of their mother and then their two oldest siblings, conveying the imaginative, verbally rich life of children who are essentially orphaned but share both the wild countryside and the gifts of story. Brother Branwell’s tragic struggle with alcohol and opium is seen as if offstage, wounding to his sisters and his father but sad principally because he never found a way to use literature to save himself. Reef looks at the 19th-century context for women writers and the reasons that the sisters chose to publish only under pseudonyms—and includes a wonderful description of the encounter in which Anne and Charlotte revealed their identities to Charlotte’s publisher. She also includes brief, no-major-spoilers summaries of the sisters’ novels, inviting readers to connect the dots and to understand how real-life experience was transformed into fiction.
A solid and captivating look at these remarkable pioneers of modern fiction. (notes and a comprehensive bibliography) (Biography. 12-16)Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-547-57966-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
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