In this ambitious but convoluted piece of semi-fiction, Lois Ruby builds a story from historical facts surrounding the Underground Railroad. Meant as a companion to Steal Away Home (not reviewed) Ruby sets her narrative in alternating chapters that bounce back and forth by 150 years. In the late–20th century Dana lives with her parents in a bed & breakfast, a house that was once a stop on the Underground Railroad and occupied by the young James Weaver. When Dana catches their first guests prowling around late at night in the closets and bathrooms, she tries to piece together how this is linked to the rich history of the house and to the demise of the Delaware Indians. Meanwhile, in the 1857 chapters, the reader learns how events transpired as we follow James Weaver on a harrowing trek to bring a family of slaves to freedom. After many miles and many dangers James and those in his care are nearly home-free when he is forced to make a devastating choice between saving the slaves with whom he has traveled so long and hiding the treaty which could save Delaware Indians and their land. Ruby drafts her main characters, James and Dana, with care and depth, but a number of peripheral characters are mere tracings. It is easy to become disoriented by the jumble of people and events and the flip-flopping of time periods is disconcerting. By dramatizing these episodes, Ruby recreates the evils waged against both Native Americans and African-Americans in this country, but this effort would have been more successful had she concentrated on the historical half of her tale. (Fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-689-83266-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2000
The author of Cod’s Tale (2001) again demonstrates a dab hand at recasting his adult work for a younger audience. Here the topic is salt, “the only rock eaten by human beings,” and, as he engrossingly demonstrates, “the object of wars and revolutions” throughout recorded history and before. Between his opening disquisition on its chemical composition and a closing timeline, he explores salt’s sources and methods of extraction, its worldwide economic influences from prehistoric domestication of animals to Gandhi’s Salt March, its many uses as a preservative and industrial product, its culinary and even, as the source for words like “salary” and “salad,” its linguistic history. Along with lucid maps and diagrams, Schindler supplies detailed, sometimes fanciful scenes to go along, finishing with a view of young folk chowing down on orders of French fries as ghostly figures from history look on. Some of Kurlansky’s claims are exaggerated (the Erie and other canals were built to transport more than just salt, for instance), and there are no leads to further resources, but this salutary (in more ways than one) micro-history will have young readers lifting their shakers in tribute. (Picture book/nonfiction. 8-10)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-399-23998-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2006
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care.
In 1977, the oil carrier Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into a formerly pristine Alaskan ocean inlet, killing millions of birds, animals, and fish. Despite a cleanup, crude oil is still there.
The Winters foretold the destructive powers of the atomic bomb allusively in The Secret Project (2017), leaving the actuality to the backmatter. They make no such accommodations to young audiences in this disturbing book. From the dark front cover, on which oily blobs conceal a seabird, to the rescuer’s sad face on the back, the mother-son team emphasizes the disaster. A relatively easy-to-read and poetically heightened text introduces the situation. Oil is pumped from the Earth “all day long, all night long, / day after day, year after year” in “what had been unspoiled land, home to Native people // and thousands of caribou.” The scale of extraction is huge: There’s “a giant pipeline” leading to “enormous ships.” Then, crash. Rivers of oil gush out over three full-bleed wordless pages. Subsequent scenes show rocks, seabirds, and sea otters covered with oil. Finally, 30 years later, animals have returned to a cheerful scene. “But if you lift a rock… // oil / seeps / up.” For an adult reader, this is heartbreaking. How much more difficult might this be for an animal-loving child?
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care. (author’s note, further reading) (Informational picture book. 9-12)Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3077-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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