This valuable chronicle fills an important gap in Holocaust literature.
Lost stories of young Jewish female resistance fighters in World War II Poland are brought to light and retold for a new generation.
Young Jewish women played a critical role in resistance movements during World War II, yet they are rarely given due credit, their legacies largely neglected for myriad complex reasons. This book seeks to remedy that omission, highlighting the stories of just over a dozen such young women in Poland, based on primary and secondary sources, many created during wartime or in the immediate postwar era and subsequently lost to the annals of history. These courageous women, many of them active participants in Jewish youth group movements prior to the war, rallied their passions and their networks to build resistance movements within the Jewish ghettos. They gathered intelligence, helped organize uprisings, and participated in acts of sabotage. Those who could pass as non-Jews often served as couriers, smuggling information, goods, and people in and out of the ghettos. Initially it is difficult to keep track of the cast, with various individuals operating out of different locations, and the writing style is less than engaging. However, the pace picks up as readers become more intimately acquainted with a select few figures who especially stand out, such as Renia Kukiełka, a courier whose journey takes terrifying turns.
This valuable chronicle fills an important gap in Holocaust literature. (who's who, map, author's note, glossary, source notes, further reading) (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-303769-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
If Freedman wrote the history textbooks, we would have many more historians. Beginning with an engrossing description of the Boston Tea Party in 1773, he brings the reader the lives of the American colonists and the events leading up to the break with England. The narrative approach to history reads like a good story, yet Freedman tucks in the data that give depth to it. The inclusion of all the people who lived during those times and the roles they played, whether small or large are acknowledged with dignity. The story moves backwards from the Boston Tea Party to the beginning of the European settlement of what they called the New World, and then proceeds chronologically to the signing of the Declaration. “Your Rights and Mine” traces the influence of the document from its inception to the present ending with Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. The full text of the Declaration and a reproduction of the original are included. A chronology of events and an index are helpful to the young researcher. Another interesting feature is “Visiting the Declaration of Independence.” It contains a short review of what happened to the document in the years after it was written, a useful Web site, and a description of how it is displayed and protected today at the National Archives building in Washington, D.C. Illustrations from the period add interest and detail. An excellent addition to the American history collection and an engrossing read. (Nonfiction. 9-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-8234-1448-5
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2000
Logically pointing out that the American cowboy archetype didn’t spring up from nowhere, Sandler, author of Cowboys (1994) and other volumes in the superficial, if luxuriously illustrated, “Library of Congress Book” series, looks back over 400 years of cattle tending in North America. His coverage ranges from the livestock carried on Columbus’s second voyage to today’s herding-by-helicopter operations. Here, too, the generous array of dramatic early prints, paintings, and photos are more likely to capture readers’ imaginations than the generality-ridden text. But among his vague comments about the characters, values, and culture passed by Mexican vaqueros to later arrivals from the Eastern US, Sadler intersperses nods to the gauchos, llaneros, and other South American “cowmen,” plus the paniolos of Hawaii, and the renowned African-American cowboys. He also decries the role film and popular literature have played in suppressing the vaqueros’ place in the history of the American West. He tackles an uncommon topic, and will broaden the historical perspective of many young cowboy fans, but his glance at modern vaqueros seems to stop at this country’s borders. Young readers will get a far more detailed, vivid picture of vaquero life and work from the cowboy classics in his annotated bibliography. (Notes, glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2001
ISBN: 0-8050-6019-7
Page Count: 116
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2000
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