Solidly researched and, no bones about it, both eye- and mind-widening.
Murder and mayhem from the annals of osteoarchaeology, with modern instances of cannibalism and like chewy topics on the side.
Continuing her ventures into the more lurid corners of history and prehistory, Hollihan opens with the discovery and excavation of King Richard III’s hacked bones from beneath a modern parking lot and closes with the still-ongoing project of piecing together and identifying the jumbled skeletons of hundreds of servicemen who died in the bowels of the Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor. In between she reports on rattling finds including the 10,000-plus 13th-century burials at London’s Spitalfields and the immense tolls of various volcanic explosions. She also tucks into Inuit accounts of the ill-fated Franklin expedition and other well-documented cases of people becoming cuisine and, with a certain relish, details how the last czar and his family were shot, stabbed, looted, splashed with acid, dismembered, burned, buried, and reburied. Providing some contrast, she also describes digs that uncovered couples holding hands or hugging each other and sensitively reports on controversies with Native American and other Indigenous groups over the custody of remains like those of Kennewick Man. Photos aplenty add to the fun with views of skulls or half-excavated skeletons in situ, archaeological sites, fleshed-out portrait reconstructions, and historical images. In the pictures, most but not all of the faces (the ones with skin still attached anyway) are White.
Solidly researched and, no bones about it, both eye- and mind-widening. (source notes, further reading, index) (Nonfiction. 10-13)Pub Date: Sept. 21, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-5535-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This survey of body systems tries too hard for a broad audience, mixing paragraphs of lines like, “Without bones we would just be bags of goop,” printed in slightly larger type, with brief but specific discussions of osteoblasts, myofibrils, peristalsis and like parts and functions. Seven single or double gatefolds allow the many simple, brightly painted illustrations space to range from thumbnail size to forearm-length. Many of the visuals offer inside and outside views of a multicultural cast—of children, by and large, though the sexual organs are shown on headless trunks and the final picture provides a peek inside a pregnant mother. Even if younger readers don’t stumble over the vocabulary while older ones reject the art as babyish, this isn’t going to make the top shelf; information is presented in a scattershot way, the text and pictures don’t consistently correspond—three muscles needed to kick a soccer ball are named but not depicted, for instance, and an entire tongue is labeled “taste bud”—and the closing resource list is both print only and partly adult. (glossary, bibliography, further reading, index) (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4027-7091-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2010
It’s not exactly an untold tale, but this new telling is worth the read.
A solid new entry in Mann’s exemplary tour of the modern world’s architectural wonders (The Taj Mahal, 2008, etc.).
Even sticking to the basic facts, as the author does, the story of how Lady Liberty was conceived, constructed and bestowed makes a compelling tale. Pointing to the disparate long-term outcomes of the American and French revolutions to explain why the U.S. system of government became so admired in France, Mann takes the statue from Edouard Laboulaye’s pie-in-the-sky proposal at a dinner party in 1865 to the massive opening ceremonies in 1886. Along the way, she highlights the techniques that sculptor Bartholdi used to scale up his ambitious model successfully and the long struggle against public indifference and skepticism on both sides of the Atlantic to fund both the monument itself and its base. Witschonke supplements an array of period photos and prints with full-page or larger painted reconstructions of Bartholdi’s studio and workshop, of the statue’s piecemeal creation and finally of the Lady herself, properly copper colored as she initially was, presiding over New York’s crowded harbor. As she still does.
It’s not exactly an untold tale, but this new telling is worth the read. (measurements, bibliography, "The New Colossus") (Nonfiction. 10-13)Pub Date: July 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-931414-43-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Mikaya Press
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2011
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