The story of Eratosthenes, a scholar of the third century b.c. Blending fact with informed conjecture, Lasky describes the education of a wellborn Greek boy, suggests questions he might have asked, and follows him from school in his native Cyrene (in what is now Libya) to further study in Athens and his post at the great library at Alexandria. Lasky highlights her subject's most notable qualities in a perky, lucid narrative. She depicts Eratosthenes's curiosity and orderly mind (he was an inveterate list maker) as the foundations of his greatest accomplishment: While writing a comprehensive geography, he estimated the circumference of the earth to within 200 miles of today's most precise measurements. With admirable clarity, Lasky explains exactly how he did it. Hawkes's pop-eyed characters burst with intelligence, while his lively full-bleed paintings include touches of humor amongst authentic details of the setting—in particular, some mischievous action on otherwise stately vases. An excellent contribution. Bibliographies for both Lasky and Hawkes; a note and an afterword place the librarian in histical context. (Nonfiction/Picture book. 5-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-316-51526-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1994
In a volume subtitled ``The Story of the Pony Express,'' Harness (The Amazing Impossible Erie Canal, 1995, etc.) traces the exuberance and the debt that—for a brief period in 186061- -blazed the mail west in ten short days, half the time it had taken by stagecoach. The historical context is planted around the venture: the rumblings of civil war, Lincoln's pending election, the upheaval of native lands as more settlers pressed westward. Harness also dwells on the youth and instincts of the riders, who battled weather and fatigue, and provides factual asides that can be pored over once the main story is known, e.g., a list of 182 names of riders (the last died in 1955, in New York City). When paired with Andrew Glass's The Sweetwater Run (p. 1399), about Bill Cody's stint with the Pony Express, this book will be ideal for units on the West, for it makes historical events fairly roar with immediacy. (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-10)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-689-80523-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1996
A fine picture book from Hathorn and Andrews: The text, a poem, is provoking and challenging, with a pulsing lyric understatement, while the superb artwork is composed of a collage of fabric snips painted in subtly harmonious, unctuous color. A mother and her two daughters are slaves on a plantation. The action involves the cobbling together from cloth fragments a wedding dress for the older daughter, Sissy (“A scrap of net, outrageous, light/Round Sissy’s neck, this flimsy tie./Susannah laughs at the very sight,/Her sister looks so pleased, so shy”), who is to be married to John Bee, a free man. They gather almost all that they need, but for the back panel, which miraculously appears when the lady from the Big House wants a sheet cut up for dusters. The dress completed, the mother presides at the wedding (a preacher has been disallowed by the missus, which, as if the dress were not enough, will give young readers a taste of a slave’s life), and while there is great happiness, the couple must part: John returns to his work to earn money toward buying Sissy’s freedom. The dress is taken apart, returned to dusters, but that it was made at all is nothing short of inspirational. When Sissy finally leaves, the sadness of her mother and Susannah is tempered by the thought of a new dress, a waiting dress, for Sissy’s child, to be born free. Through it all runs Susannah’s sky blue sash, a simple but talismanic scarf, a vehicle to express love, generosity, remembrance, and the tie that binds. (Picture book/poetry. 5-9)
Pub Date: June 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81090-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1998
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