The grand subtitle might overreach a bit, but then, so did La Salle. Goodman (Bernard Goes to School, p. 1122, etc.) presents a memorable portrait of this incurable hustler, whose astonishing physical hardiness and unshakable optimism got him through one disastrous enterprise after another. Seen as a restless man with more vision than organizational or people skills, La Salle was at last murdered by his own men—but not before traveling the length of the Mississippi (and, more than once, walking back to Canada after being abandoned by companions), losing several fortunes, claiming the Louisiana Territory for King Louis XIV (who didn’t want it), and forging an alliance of Miami, Abenaki, and Mohicans against the aggressive Iroquois. Enhancing a scattering of sidebar quotes, McNeely’s 19th-century–style tableaux add a vivid sense of period, depicting the rugged explorer in buckskins, or elegant 17th-century dress, surrounded by fascinated French courtiers or trekking through snowy woods with his loyal Shawnee servant Nika. A foldout map allows young readers to trace La Salle’s journeys as they read. Despite the lack of source or resource notes, this lively biography sits a good cut above standard school assignment fare. (Biography. 9-12)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-931414-01-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Firefly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2001
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care.
In 1977, the oil carrier Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into a formerly pristine Alaskan ocean inlet, killing millions of birds, animals, and fish. Despite a cleanup, crude oil is still there.
The Winters foretold the destructive powers of the atomic bomb allusively in The Secret Project (2017), leaving the actuality to the backmatter. They make no such accommodations to young audiences in this disturbing book. From the dark front cover, on which oily blobs conceal a seabird, to the rescuer’s sad face on the back, the mother-son team emphasizes the disaster. A relatively easy-to-read and poetically heightened text introduces the situation. Oil is pumped from the Earth “all day long, all night long, / day after day, year after year” in “what had been unspoiled land, home to Native people // and thousands of caribou.” The scale of extraction is huge: There’s “a giant pipeline” leading to “enormous ships.” Then, crash. Rivers of oil gush out over three full-bleed wordless pages. Subsequent scenes show rocks, seabirds, and sea otters covered with oil. Finally, 30 years later, animals have returned to a cheerful scene. “But if you lift a rock… // oil / seeps / up.” For an adult reader, this is heartbreaking. How much more difficult might this be for an animal-loving child?
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care. (author’s note, further reading) (Informational picture book. 9-12)Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3077-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
Partly filling the historical gap between their New Americans: Colonial Times, 1620-1689 (1998) and A More Perfect Union: The Story of Our Constitution (1987), the Maestros examine King William’s War, Queen Anne’s War, the War of Jenkins’ Ear, and other half-forgotten conflicts usually lumped together as the French and Indian Wars. Concluding that these wars were fought for economic control of North America and paralleled the first stirrings of a sense of national unity, the authors trace the growth of trade routes and other lines of communication. They also pay close attention to the wars’ consistently lamentable effects on the Native American groups allied with either the French or the British forces. Though much of the fighting and strategic maneuvering took place in what is now Canada, the Maestros take their most widely angled views of territories that became part of the United States. With plenty of precisely drafted battle scenes, street plans, portraits, maps, and landscapes, plus a spread of additional information on topics as diverse as colonial money and the Iroquois League, they bring a formative era in our country’s history into sharp focus for young readers. (index) (Nonfiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2000
ISBN: 0-688-13450-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2000
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