A patchy, unusually wrong-footed outing from the deservedly esteemed historian.
A portrait of the Revolutionary War as a family spat that got out of hand.
In a savvy effort to make the war more accessible to young audiences, Krull begins by characterizing it as a “blowup between a parent figure and unruly children.” She then goes on to trace its course from the Stamp Act to the Treaty of Paris. Glib and readable as her overall account may be, though, it’s so frequently interrupted by discursive anecdotes and “Wise Words” from both participants and such modern savants as Hillary Clinton and Lin-Manual Miranda (the latter in an amusingly bowdlerized quote) that it’s often hard to keep track of events. More problematically, her language is afflicted with a pervasive parochialism that comes out both in her repeated use of the term “slaves” and, notwithstanding a proper acknowledgement of the influence of the Iroquois Confederacy on the political thinking of the Declaration’s drafters, several references to Native peoples as generic “Indians.” She does remember the ladies as well as African-Americans who fought on both sides, and she closes with an inspiring appreciation of the ways ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence have gone on to affect the histories of this and many other countries. In her line drawings DiVito adds tongue-in-cheek notes, portraying George Washington as Captain America, for instance, and tucking a few extra heads among those on Mount Rushmore.
A patchy, unusually wrong-footed outing from the deservedly esteemed historian. (maps, index, source list) (History. 10-13)Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-238110-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
An introduction to ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs buried in the Valley of the Kings. The authors begin with how archaeologist Howard Carter found the tomb of King Tut, then move back 3,000 years to the time of Thutmosis I, who built the first tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Finally they describe the building of the tomb of a later Pharaoh, Ramses II. The backward-forward narration is not always easy to follow, and the authors attribute emotions to the Pharaohs without citation. For example, “Thutmosis III was furious [with Hatshepsut]. He was especially annoyed that she planned to be buried in KV 20, the tomb of her father.” Since both these people lived 3,500 years ago, speculation on who was furious or annoyed should be used with extreme caution. And the tangled intrigue of Egyptian royalty is not easily sorted out in so brief a work. Throughout, though, there are spectacular photographs of ancient Egyptian artifacts, monuments, tomb paintings, jewels, and death masks that will appeal to young viewers. The photographs of the exposed mummies of Ramses II, King Tut, and Seti I are compelling. More useful for the hauntingly beautiful photos than the text. (brief bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7922-7223-4
Page Count: 64
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Bial (A Handful of Dirt, p. 299, etc.) conjures up ghostly images of the Wild West with atmospheric photos of weathered clapboard and a tally of evocative names: Tombstone, Deadwood, Goldfield, Progress, Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickock, the OK Corral. Tracing the life cycle of the estimated 30,000 ghost towns (nearly 1300 in Utah alone), he captures some echo of their bustling, rough-and-tumble past with passages from contemporary observers like Mark Twain: “If a man wanted a fight on his hands without any annoying delay, all he had to do was appear in public in a white shirt or stove-pipe hat, and he would be accommodated.” Among shots of run-down mining works, dusty, deserted streets, and dark eaves silhouetted against evening skies, Bial intersperses 19th-century photos and prints for contrast, plus an occasional portrait of a grizzled modern resident. He suggests another sort of resident too: “At night that plaintive hoo-hoo may be an owl nesting in a nearby saguaro cactus—or the moaning of a restless ghost up in the graveyard.” Children seeking a sense of this partly mythic time and place in American history, or just a delicious shiver, will linger over his tribute. (bibliography) (Nonfiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-618-06557-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
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