This spiritual leader–as-superhero take is a middle-of-the-road retelling of the inception of the Middle Way.
In the city of Kapilavastu, seat of power for the Shakya clan, the queen has a dream that presages the birth of her child, destined to be a great holy man or a great king.
When the baby is born (and the queen dies), his father, Suddhodana, decides to shield his son from the negative forces of the world. Prince Siddhartha sees no sickness, aged infirmity, or death until near the birth of his own son. When he does see the suffering of his people, the prince renounces his crown, life of luxury, and his newborn son; he sets out to be a bhikshu (a monk) to try to find a solution to suffering. He’s tempted by the demon Mara and works through the dharma of several teachers before reaching enlightenment and devising a dharma of his own: that of the Middle Way, the Four Noble Truths, and the Eightfold Path. Then he takes his teachings to the world. Moore retells the life of Siddhartha from birth to death fairly straightforwardly, and the tale is adequately illustrated in graphic panels by Indian artist Nagulakonda, though his ancient India is largely populated by muscly, pale-skinned guys. Previous incarnations of the Buddha alluded to in the prelude are not explained, and the retelling as a whole is not particularly detailed, nor are there any historical notes.
This spiritual leader–as-superhero take is a middle-of-the-road retelling of the inception of the Middle Way. (Graphic biography. 14-18)Pub Date: July 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-93-81182-29-1
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Campfire
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
Skilled and graceful exploration of the soul of an astonishing human being.
Full-immersion journalist Kidder (Home Town, 1999, etc.) tries valiantly to keep up with a front-line, muddy-and-bloody general in the war against infectious disease in Haiti and elsewhere.
The author occasionally confesses to weariness in this gripping account—and why not? Paul Farmer, who has an M.D. and a Ph.D. from Harvard, appears to be almost preternaturally intelligent, productive, energetic, and devoted to his causes. So trotting alongside him up Haitian hills, through international airports and Siberian prisons and Cuban clinics, may be beyond the capacity of a mere mortal. Kidder begins with a swift account of his first meeting with Farmer in Haiti while working on a story about American soldiers, then describes his initial visit to the doctor’s clinic, where the journalist felt he’d “encountered a miracle.” Employing guile, grit, grins, and gifts from generous donors (especially Boston contractor Tom White), Farmer has created an oasis in Haiti where TB and AIDS meet their Waterloos. The doctor has an astonishing rapport with his patients and often travels by foot for hours over difficult terrain to treat them in their dwellings (“houses” would be far too grand a word). Kidder pauses to fill in Farmer’s amazing biography: his childhood in an eccentric family sounds like something from The Mosquito Coast; a love affair with Roald Dahl’s daughter ended amicably; his marriage to a Haitian anthropologist produced a daughter whom he sees infrequently thanks to his frenetic schedule. While studying at Duke and Harvard, Kidder writes, Farmer became obsessed with public health issues; even before he’d finished his degrees he was spending much of his time in Haiti establishing the clinic that would give him both immense personal satisfaction and unsurpassed credibility in the medical worlds he hopes to influence.
Skilled and graceful exploration of the soul of an astonishing human being.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2003
ISBN: 0-375-50616-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2003
A beautiful meditation on the tender, fraught interior lives of Black boys.
The acclaimed author of Between the World and Me (2015) reflects on the family and community that shaped him in this adaptation of his 2008 adult memoir of the same name.
Growing up in Baltimore in the ’80s, Coates was a dreamer, all “cupcakes and comic books at the core.” He was also heavily influenced by “the New York noise” of mid-to-late-1980s hip-hop. Not surprisingly then, his prose takes on an infectious hip-hop poetic–meets–medieval folklore aesthetic, as in this description of his neighborhood’s crew: “Walbrook Junction ran everything, until they met North and Pulaski, who, craven and honorless, would punk you right in front of your girl.” But it is Coates’ father—a former Black Panther and Afrocentric publisher—who looms largest in his journey to manhood. In a community where their peers were fatherless, Coates and his six siblings viewed their father as flawed but with the “aura of a prophet.” He understood how Black boys could get caught in the “crosshairs of the world” and was determined to save his. Coates revisits his relationships with his father, his swaggering older brother, and his peers. The result will draw in young adult readers while retaining all of the heart of the original.
A beautiful meditation on the tender, fraught interior lives of Black boys. (maps, family tree) (Memoir. 14-18)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-984894-03-8
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
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