The most astounding information in this entry in the Collective Biographies series is not that there have been a total of 3,420 medals awarded as the ``nation's highest military honor'' for bravery (11 of whom are covered in this volume), but that only one woman, Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, received one, in 1865. In 1916, an Army review panel struck her name from the roll of Medal recipients because she was not ``a sworn member of the military.'' Only in 1977 did the Army Board of Correction of Military Records determine ``that if Walker had not been a woman she would have been commissioned as an army officer in 1861'' and recommended that her medal be restored. Doherty recounts the bravery and patriotism of ten other recipients, from Jacob Parrott, a young Union Army soldier, to Gary Gordon and Randall Shughart, two members of the elite Delta Force who died in Somalia in 1993. The collection also includes William Carney, the first African-American recipient, and Hiroshi Miyamura, a Japanese-American hero of the Korean War. Despite the author's wish to honor those who fought bravely, some readers will wonder what makes a person risk all for country, regardless of loved ones back home. (b&w photos, not seen, chapter notes, further reading, index) (Biography. 11-13)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-7660-1026-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Enslow
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This entry in the Oxford Portraits series is both very good and very useful. White presents a clear biography of the Supreme Court justice who served in the Civil War, studied law, and lived long in the shadow of his famous writer father of the same name. By the time he came to the Supreme Court, he was already 60 years old, but served for three decades more. White creates a vivid portrait of this scholarly and philosophical legal thinker while including rich details of his intellectual but reserved home life and his affectionate flirtations with many women. More than that, readers will absorb a history of the development of legal education, the growth of the Supreme Court, and how law unfolds as a study and a discipline. White is especially felicitous in explaining how the elegance of Holmes’s prose occasionally obscured the legal point he was making. Quotations from Holmes’s writing and picture captions with further details add to the story, and not the least of its accomplishments is to show a man who began the greatest of his career challenges when he was already perceived of as old. Excellent. (chronology, further reading, index) (Biography. 10-12)
Pub Date: Nov. 12, 1999
ISBN: 0-19-511667-4
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Marguerite Henry died barely two years ago, after living the life of which most writers dream: She wrote from the time she was young, her parents encouraged her, she published early and often, and her books were honored and loved in her lifetime. Her hobby, she said, was words, but it was also her life and livelihood. Her research skills were honed by working in her local library, doing book repair. Her husband Sidney supported and encouraged her work, and they traveled widely as she carefully researched the horses on Chincoteague and the burros in the Grand Canyon. She worked in great harmony with her usual illustrator, Wesley Dennis, and was writing up until she died. Collins is a bit overwrought in his prose, but Henry comes across as strong and engaging as she must have been in person. Researchers will be delighted to find her Newbery acceptance speech included in its entirety. (b&w photos, bibliography, index) (Biography. 9-12)
Pub Date: March 10, 1999
ISBN: 1-883846-39-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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