Young people with entrepreneurial ambitions will find Walton’s life inspiring, instructive and, perhaps, cautionary.
When he died in 1992, Sam Walton left behind a multibillion-dollar retail empire that today comprises over 9,000 stores in 15 countries; Blumenthal chronicles Walton’s remarkable rise from humble beginnings to becoming the founder of Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer.
Walton’s childhood was not wholly the stuff of Horatio Alger stories. His family managed to scrape by through the worst of economic times. Young Sam earned extra money selling magazine subscriptions, delivering newspapers and raising pigeons and rabbits. Walton learned about retail by working for J.C. Penney and managing a Ben Franklin 5-and-10 before establishing his first store in 1962. By 1989, Walton had over 1,500 stores, grossing $26 billion in sales. What will most surprise readers is Walton’s lack of interest in money, which he called “just paper.” Even after becoming a billionaire, Walton maintained a frugal lifestyle. Beating the competition always mattered most to him, a goal he ruthlessly pursued. Making the life of a man who devoted nearly every moment of his adult life to expanding his company an interesting story could be tough, but Blumenthal succeeds in bringing Walton’s driven personality and obsession with winning to life. (The author addresses the mostly posthumous controversies surrounding Wal-Mart in an epilogue.)
Young people with entrepreneurial ambitions will find Walton’s life inspiring, instructive and, perhaps, cautionary. (notes, bibliography) (Biography. 10-14)Pub Date: July 7, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-670-01177-3
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats.
Why should grown-ups get all the historical, scientific, athletic, cinematic, and artistic glory?
Choosing exemplars from both past and present, Mitchell includes but goes well beyond Alexander the Great, Anne Frank, and like usual suspects to introduce a host of lesser-known luminaries. These include Shapur II, who was formally crowned king of Persia before he was born, Indian dancer/professional architect Sheila Sri Prakash, transgender spokesperson Jazz Jennings, inventor Param Jaggi, and an international host of other teen or preteen activists and prodigies. The individual portraits range from one paragraph to several pages in length, and they are interspersed with group tributes to, for instance, the Nazi-resisting “Swingkinder,” the striking New York City newsboys, and the marchers of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade. Mitchell even offers would-be villains a role model in Elagabalus, “boy emperor of Rome,” though she notes that he, at least, came to an awful end: “Then, then! They dumped his remains in the Tiber River, to be nommed by fish for all eternity.” The entries are arranged in no evident order, and though the backmatter includes multiple booklists, a personality quiz, a glossary, and even a quick Braille primer (with Braille jokes to decode), there is no index. Still, for readers whose fires need lighting, there’s motivational kindling on nearly every page.
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats. (finished illustrations not seen) (Collective biography. 10-13)Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-751813-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Puffin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
Hot on the heels of the well-received Leonardo da Vinci (2005) comes another agreeably chatty entry in the Giants of Science series. Here the pioneering physicist is revealed as undeniably brilliant, but also cantankerous, mean-spirited, paranoid and possibly depressive. Newton’s youth and annus mirabilis receive respectful treatment, the solitude enforced by family estrangement and then the plague seen as critical to the development of his thoughtful, methodical approach. His subsequent squabbles with the rest of the scientific community—he refrained from publishing one treatise until his rival was dead—further support the image of Newton as a scientific lone wolf. Krull’s colloquial treatment sketches Newton’s advances in clearly understandable terms without bogging the text down with detailed explanations. A final chapter on “His Impact” places him squarely in the pantheon of great thinkers, arguing that both his insistence on the scientific method and his theories of physics have informed all subsequent scientific thought. A bibliography, web site and index round out the volume; the lack of detail on the use of sources is regrettable in an otherwise solid offering for middle-grade students. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-05921-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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