A portrait of a courageous and admirable young voice for change—but no substitute for the book that is its major source.
A cursory introduction to the Pakistani teenager who earned international attention (and a Nobel Peace Prize nomination) after surviving a Taliban gunman’s assassination attempt.
Doeden draws largely from Yousafzai’s 2013 autobiography and a handful of news reports to craft his account. He explains how she, as the eldest daughter of a dedicated founder of girls schools in Pakistan and co-author (at the age of 11) of a personal blog sponsored by the BBC Urdu, became a public face for Muslim girls’ education—and therefore a Taliban target. Silenced only temporarily by a bullet to the head in 2012, she has gone on not only to become an even more vocal advocate for equal (not to say any) education, but to challenge President Barack Obama face to face about the use of military drones in her country. It’s a straightforward account geared to those who aren’t ready to tackle longer, richer resources. Most of the cramped color photos, and all of the unhelpful pull quotes, serve to fill space more than anything else.
A portrait of a courageous and admirable young voice for change—but no substitute for the book that is its major source. (map, endnotes, bibliography) (Biography. 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4677-4907-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Lerner
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2014
Earnest but insubstantial, marred by mismatched art and subpar paper engineering.
A tribute to the original Renaissance man, with pop-up models and other special features.
The illustrations mix reproductions of actual works by Leonardo and some of his contemporaries with Geis’ own drab, flat daubs, and the combination is not a happy one. Fitting in sketchy biographical details as she goes and with an eye to demonstrating the artist’s legendary versatility, she devotes each of seven spreads to a particular project or topic. The huge, never-finished horse commissioned by the Duke of Milan, for instance, is represented here by a featureless brown pop-up of the clay model flanked by standing lines of indistinct onlookers that lean back even when the leaves are fully separated. Similarly, on a final spread anachronistically headed “Robots,” a simply rendered armored figure jerks an arm and a leg with the pull of a tab, but the author does not say whether Leonardo’s design was ever built, nor does she show or describe its actual mechanism. Much of the narrative and most of the small, murky reproductions are squeezed into peanut-shaped booklets. For “Portraits,” three reproduced paintings on flimsy loose sheets can be slid from a frame and exchanged, and based on one tiny partial sketch, readers are invited to glue together an “ideal city” like Leonardo’s from a set of larger punch-out sheets in a pocket at the end.
Earnest but insubstantial, marred by mismatched art and subpar paper engineering. (Informational pop-up. 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-61689-766-6
Page Count: 16
Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Be a best friend and give this book to someone who has not read it
One decision can change your life…these 10 decisions turned a man into a president.
The father-daughter Hirschfeld team examines the life of Abraham Lincoln in this quirky and humorous biography. The narrative is written as if it’s speaking directly to Lincoln, using active, directional statements that transport readers into each highlighted moment of history. And what a history it is; 10 key moments in Honest Abe’s life (including the coinage of that moniker) are discussed across 10 chapters. Each chapter concludes with a quiz for readers encouraging them to predict how Abe should react to each situation. Each quiz is followed by “The Reveal,” a summary of how and why Lincoln responded to each specific situation. Sprinkled throughout are facts about Lincoln’s life, vocabulary lessons, and archival images of Abe’s contemporaries embellished with humorous, cartoonish speech bubbles. The overall effect gives readers an image of our 16th president that is humanizing and engaging. After the 10 questions have wrapped, the book continues over an additional 10 chapters that are packed with trivia, information on Abe’s personal and professional lives, and one score and change of bibliographic wonders. The humor doesn’t run out in the second half; readers are challenged to imagine Abe’s reactions to modern concepts from genetic engineering to emojis. Educators will love this title for its wealth of information, and young readers will love it for its welcoming tone.
Be a best friend and give this book to someone who has not read it . (Biography. 10-12)Pub Date: Dec. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-553-50953-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
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