Mummy books cram the shelves, but this one won’t stay buried for long.
Hollihan unwraps the skinny on human mummies of both the distant past and more recent times.
Leaving few if any double-entendres unturned, the author highlights prominent examples of both artificially preserved corpses and those that have survived (so to speak) due to natural causes. The roster includes the familiar likes of King Tut, Lenin, and China’s Lady Dai as well as lower-profile remains such as the tattooed Altai Princess, the “Moche muchacha” Lady of Cao, and the 262 former residents of Vác, Hungary, found during a church renovation in 1994. In introducing her subjects, she recounts initial encounters, describes sites and physical states in “easy queasy” detail, and clearly explains the techniques researchers use in field and lab to reconstruct each discovery’s life, demise, and culture. Complex issues of cultural appropriation raised by disturbing and removing the dead versus preserving the safety of ancient sites, particularly in the face of climate change, also receive respectful notice. Along with an array of boxed side notes—a bulleted list of the stages of decomposition (“The skin turns blue-green”) being typically informative—and numerous close-up color photos of variously decomposed bodies and body parts, generous chapter-by-chapter sets of endnotes and of print and web resources add further layers of interest and value to this series opener.
Mummy books cram the shelves, but this one won’t stay buried for long. (index) (Nonfiction. 10-13)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3167-9
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This glossy, colorful title in the “I Want To Be” series has visual appeal but poor organization and a fuzzy focus, which limits its usefulness. Each double-paged layout introduces a new topic with six to eight full-color photographs and a single column of text. Topics include types of environmentalists, eco-issues, waste renewal, education, High School of Environmental Studies, environmental vocabulary, history of environmentalism, famous environmentalists, and the return of the eagle. Often the photographs have little to do with the text or are marginal to the topic. For example, a typical layout called “Some Alternative Solutions” has five snapshots superimposed on a double-page photograph of a California wind farm. The text discusses ways to develop alternative forms of energy and “encourage environmentally friendly lifestyles.” Photos include “a healer who treats a patient with alternative therapy using sound and massage,” and “the Castle,” a house built of “used tires and aluminum cans.” Elsewhere, “Did You Know . . . ” shows a dramatic photo of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, but the text provides odd facts such as “ . . . that in Saudi Arabia there are solar-powered pay phones in the desert?” Some sections seem stuck in, a two-page piece on the effects of “El Niño” or 50 postage-stamp–sized photos of endangered species. The author concludes with places to write for more information and a list of photo credits. Pretty, but little here to warrant purchase. (Nonfiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-15-201862-X
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In this companion to Portraits of War: Civil War Photographers and Their Work (1998), Sullivan presents an album of the prominent ships and men who fought on both sides, matched to an engrossing account of the war's progress: at sea, on the Mississippi, and along the South's well-defended coastline. In his view, the issue never was in doubt, for though the Confederacy fought back with innovative ironclads, sleek blockade runners, well-armed commerce raiders, and sturdy fortifications, from the earliest stages the North was able to seal off, and then take, one major southern port after another. The photos, many of which were made from fragile glass plates whose survival seems near-miraculous, are drawn from private as well as public collections, and some have never been published before. There aren't any action shots, since mid-19th-century photography required very long exposure times, but the author compensates with contemporary prints, plus crisp battle accounts, lucid strategic overviews, and descriptions of the technological developments that, by war's end, gave this country a world-class navy. He also profiles the careers of Matthew Brady and several less well-known photographers, adding another level of interest to a multi-stranded survey. (source notes, index) (Nonfiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7613-1553-5
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Twenty-First Century/Millbrook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
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