``You Americans think all of Africa is hunger, Apartheid and a safari'' challenges a character in this sprawling mix of fact and fiction. As a reporter and, later, a gofer attached to a struggling world music tour, white teenager MacBurnie King continues her travels through the Third World (begun in Monsoon: A Novel To End World Hunger, 1985), seeing Africa as it really is from Casablanca to Mozambique; she visits its historical sites, samples its troubled present when a band member is shot in a race riot, and sees a graphic video of South African atrocities. The story is tucked among advertisements for Ballard's other books, testimonials from scholars and celebrities (including Coretta Scott King), sheaves of small b&w photos (most of their captions appear only at the end), and well over 100 pages of back matter—mostly exhortatory, Afrocentric essays on African history and culture extracted from the separately published Soul To Soul Guide to African-American Consciousness, bound dos-a-dos. Lacking are an index, an accurate table of contents, or even full pagination. The saga is continued in ...Brothers and Sisters (introduction by Nelson Mandela), in which the American teenager sees Victoria Falls and helps a fugitive Eritrean return to his homeland; back matter here includes profiles of the several photographers and essays on African culture and Rastafarianism. Though obviously a labor of love, and packed with worthy information, these well-meaning but impossibly cluttered and disorganized volumes will be less useful than nonfiction of narrower scope and less involving as fiction than Dickinson's AK (1992). Several other sequels are on the way. For a more balanced view, try Africa: Opposing Viewpoints (1992). (Fiction/Nonfiction. YA)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-932279-10-4
Page Count: 375
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1993
Pitamic bites off more than she can chew with this instructional art volume, but its core projects will excite in the right context. Twelve pieces of fine art inspire two art projects apiece. Matisse’s The Snail opens the Color section; after history and analysis, there’s one project arranging multicolored tissue-paper squares and one project adding hue to white paint to create stripes of value gradation. These creative endeavors exploring value, shade, texture and various media will exhilarate young artists—but only with at best semi-successful results, as they require an adult dedicated to both advance material procurement and doing the artwork along with the child. Otherwise, complex instructions plus a frequent requirement to draw or trace realistically will cause frustration. Much of the text is above children’s heads, errors of terminology and reproduction detract and the links between the famous pieces and the projects are imprecise. However, an involved adult and an enterprising child aged seven to ten will find many of the projects fabulously challenging and rewarding. Art In Action 2 (ISBN: 978-0-7641-441-7) publishes simultaneously. (artist biographies, glossary, location of originals) (Nonfiction. Adults)
Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7641-4440-0
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Barron's
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2010
American citizens have been held hostage in the Middle East at least since 1979, when our embassy in Teheran was seized by a mob; Lawson's history of the US government's response in the 80's makes a sad tale of hypocrisy, incompetence, and corruption. He shows how, after the hostage crisis cost Carter his political career, Reagan allowed a series of profitable arms-for-hostages deals to go through—while publicly condemning the idea—to finance his ``pet anti-communist project.'' The ensuing revelations, investigations, and trials are covered here in some detail. In an epilogue, Lawson notes that a new group of hostages were taken when Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait in 1990. A thematic introduction by Arthur L. Liman, an attorney involved in the Senate Iran-contra investigation, sums it up: Reagan's advisors, acting from ``disrespect, bordering on contempt'' for the Constitution, established a ``secret government within the Government'' for specifically illegal purposes. B&w photos; adequate bibliography; long chronology; excellent notes; chart listing hostages taken in the 80's; index. (Nonfiction. YA)
Pub Date: April 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-531-11009-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1991
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