A selective but revealing collection of presidential thises and thats, which put an appealingly human face on the executive...
Townsend brings his high spirits and hijinks to bear, in comic-book format, on the life and responsibilities of the United States president.
Despite all the corny, at times plain bizarre, jokes that saturate this story of the presidency, Townsend manages to cover considerable ground. The information imparted doesn’t run particularly deep, but in simple, mostly jocose language, he manages to explain the Electoral College, the dangers of being president and the countermeasures that have been established, the roles of the president in foreign policy and as commander in chief, and how a presidential pardon works (including pardoning the Thanksgiving turkey), as well as a history of the White House and a vest-pocket biography of George Washington. Peppering the larger themes are scads of factoids, from George Bush tossing his lunch at a state dinner to Calvin Coolidge’s pygmy hippo to the July 4th deaths of Adams, Jefferson and Monroe. The sheer density of material on the page can occasionally be overwhelming, with panels of text—lots of text—and drawings in a great chromatic swarm, though the rhythm and direction of the story is never in doubt. Now and then Townsend will throw in a nonsense panel, as much to keep readers on their toes as a stab at levity.
A selective but revealing collection of presidential thises and thats, which put an appealingly human face on the executive branch. (Graphic nonfiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-8037-3748-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
Essential.
A measured corrective to pervasive myths about what is often referred to as the “first Thanksgiving.”
Contextualizing them within a Native perspective, Newell (Passamaquoddy) touches on the all-too-familiar elements of the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving and its origins and the history of English colonization in the territory now known as New England. In addition to the voyage and landfall of the Mayflower, readers learn about the Doctrine of Discovery that arrogated the lands of non-Christian peoples to European settlers; earlier encounters between the Indigenous peoples of the region and Europeans; and the Great Dying of 1616-1619, which emptied the village of Patuxet by 1620. Short, two- to six-page chapters alternate between the story of the English settlers and exploring the complex political makeup of the region and the culture, agriculture, and technology of the Wampanoag—all before covering the evolution of the holiday. Refreshingly, the lens Newell offers is a Native one, describing how the Wampanoag and other Native peoples received the English rather than the other way around. Key words ranging from estuary to discover are printed in boldface in the narrative and defined in a closing glossary. Nelson (a member of the Leech Lake Band of Minnesota Chippewa) contributes soft line-and-color illustrations of the proceedings. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Essential. (Nonfiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-72637-4
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Scholastic Nonfiction
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
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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