by Michael L. Cooper ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 4, 2014
A dramatic narrative, richly illustrated and solidly supported.
The history of firefighting in the United States is explored through the stories of 10 important fires.
Some are familiar stories, others less well-known. It begins with the largest in Colonial history, the Boston fire of 1760 that some saw as judgment from God even as they sought to make improvements in the city’s ability to respond to future blazes. The change in city skylines that occurred after the Chicago fire is discussed, and fires in Baltimore, New York and San Francisco in the early 20th century, deemed the “great urban fires,” led to important changes in regulations, building codes and firefighting techniques. Workplace tragedies such as the one that occurred at the Triangle Waist Company led to changes in laws protecting workers. The devastating loss of life in the attacks on the World Trade Center demonstrated the vulnerability of modern buildings. The volume concludes with a look at one of California’s worst wildfires. Each of the 10 incidents seems carefully chosen to provide a different angle to the history of American firefighting. Readers can chart progress and setbacks as firefighters worked to improve their techniques and communities attempted to make their buildings and environments safer.
A dramatic narrative, richly illustrated and solidly supported. (museums to visit, recommended reading, websites, source notes, glossary, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9714-6
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Jan. 7, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014
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by Kathleen Krull & illustrated by Boris Kulikov ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2006
Hot on the heels of the well-received Leonardo da Vinci (2005) comes another agreeably chatty entry in the Giants of Science series. Here the pioneering physicist is revealed as undeniably brilliant, but also cantankerous, mean-spirited, paranoid and possibly depressive. Newton’s youth and annus mirabilis receive respectful treatment, the solitude enforced by family estrangement and then the plague seen as critical to the development of his thoughtful, methodical approach. His subsequent squabbles with the rest of the scientific community—he refrained from publishing one treatise until his rival was dead—further support the image of Newton as a scientific lone wolf. Krull’s colloquial treatment sketches Newton’s advances in clearly understandable terms without bogging the text down with detailed explanations. A final chapter on “His Impact” places him squarely in the pantheon of great thinkers, arguing that both his insistence on the scientific method and his theories of physics have informed all subsequent scientific thought. A bibliography, web site and index round out the volume; the lack of detail on the use of sources is regrettable in an otherwise solid offering for middle-grade students. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-05921-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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by Kathleen Krull & illustrated by Boris Kulikov
by Kathleen Krull & illustrated by Boris Kulikov
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by Kathleen Krull & Virginia Loh-Hagan ; illustrated by Aura Lewis
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by Kathleen Krull ; illustrated by Annie Bowler
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by Kathleen Krull & Paul Brewer ; illustrated by Boris Kulikov
by Amy Stewart ; illustrated by Briony Morrow-Cribbs ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 8, 2017
Entomophobes will find all of this horrifyingly informative.
This junior edition of Stewart’s lurid 2011 portrait gallery of the same name (though much less gleeful subtitle) loses none of its capacity for leaving readers squicked-out.
The author drops a few entries, notably the one on insect sexual practices, and rearranges toned-down versions of the rest into roughly topical sections. Beginning with the same cogent observation—“We are seriously outnumbered”—she follows general practice in thrillers of this ilk by defining “bug” broadly enough to include all-too-detailed descriptions of the life cycles and revolting or deadly effects of scorpions and spiders, ticks, lice, and, in a chapter evocatively titled “The Enemy Within,” such internal guests as guinea worms and tapeworms. Mosquitoes, bedbugs, the ubiquitous “Filth Fly,” and like usual suspects mingle with more-exotic threats, from the tongue-eating louse and a “yak-killer hornet” (just imagine) to the aggressive screw-worm fly that, in one cited case, flew up a man’s nose and laid hundreds of eggs…that…hatched. Morrow-Cribbs’ close-up full-color drawings don’t offer the visceral thrills of the photos in, for instance, Rebecca L. Johnson’s Zombie Makers (2012) but are accurate and finely detailed enough to please even the fussiest young entomologists.
Entomophobes will find all of this horrifyingly informative. (index, glossary, resource lists) (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61620-755-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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