bookshelf

COWBOYS

Name: COWBOYS
Author: Martin Sandler
ISBN: 0-06-023318-4

by Martin Sandler ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 30, 1994

bookshelf

An album of period photos, paintings, advertisements and posters culled from the collections of the Library of Congress. To each Sandler contributes a few general remarks, not so much descriptions as appreciations of cowboy work and character in sometimes hyperbolic prose: ``He is perhaps the most American of us all. His restlessness, his optimism, his joy in hard work...are the very qualities that mark us as a nation.'' The author acknowledges the presence of women and African-Americans on the trail and closes with a nod to modern cowboys plus a paean to LC. The photos communicate an authentic sense of life on the range; in effective contrast, the color posters, sheet music, and book jackets illustrate the growth of the cowboy myth. Still, the lack of informational captions or sources makes this a browsing item rather than a research tool. Books such as Granfield's Cowboy or Marrin's Cowboys, Indians and Gunfighters (both 1993) offer an equally dramatic, much more detailed and authoritative picture. In the same handsome format, a companion volume: Pioneers (ISBN: 0-06-023023- 1). Index. (Nonfiction. 11-14)

Pub Date: April 30, 1994

ISBN: 0-06-023318-4

Page Count: 92

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1994

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

bookshelf

DANIEL'S STORY

by Carol Matas ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1993

bookshelf

After witnessing the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany, Daniel is suddenly transported, at age 14, from his comfortable life in Frankfurt to a Polish ghetto, then to Auschwitz and Buchenwald—losing most of his family along the way, seeing Nazi brutality of both the casual and the calculated kind, and recording atrocities with a smuggled camera (``What has happened to me?...Who am I? Where am I going?''). Matas, explicating an exhibit of photos and other materials at the new United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, creates a convincing composite youth and experience—fictional but carefully based on survivors' accounts. It's a savage story with no attempt to soften the culpability of the German people; Daniel's profound anger is easier to understand than is his father's compassion or his sister's plea to ``chose love. Always choose love.'' Daniel survives to be reunited, after the war, with his wife-to-be, but his dying friend's last word echoes beyond the happy ending: ``Remember...'' An unusual undertaking, effectively carried out. Chronology; glossary. (Fiction. 11-14)

Pub Date: April 1, 1993

ISBN: 0-590-46920-7

Page Count: 128

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1993

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
KAI AND THE GOLEM
by Carol Matas ; illustrated by Elisa Vavouri

- BOOK REVIEW
Who Am I?
by Carol Matas

- BOOK REVIEW
THE EDGE OF WHEN
by Carol Matas

bookshelf

JOEY PIGZA SWALLOWED THE KEY

From the Joey Pigza series , Vol. 1

by Jack Gantos ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1998

bookshelf

If Rotten Ralph were a boy instead of a cat, he might be Joey, the hyperactive hero of Gantos's new book, except that Joey is never bad on purpose. In the first-person narration, it quickly becomes clear that he can't help himself; he's so wound up that he not only practically bounces off walls, he literally swallows his house key (which he wears on a string around his neck and which he pull back up, complete with souvenirs of the food he just ate). Gantos's straightforward view of what it's like to be Joey is so honest it hurts. Joey has been abandoned by his alcoholic father and, for a time, by his mother (who also drinks); his grandmother, just as hyperactive as he is, abuses Joey while he's in her care. One mishap after another leads Joey first from his regular classroom to special education classes and then to a special education school. With medication, counseling, and positive reinforcement, Joey calms down. Despite a lighthearted title and jacket painting, the story is simultaneously comic and horrific; Gantos takes readers right inside a human whirlwind where the ride is bumpy and often frightening, especially for Joey. But a river of compassion for the characters runs through the pages, not only for Joey but for his overextended mom and his usually patient, always worried (if only for their safety) teachers. Mature readers will find this harsh tale softened by unusual empathy and leavened by genuinely funny events. (Fiction. 11-13)