Like its companion volume, Boys Who Rocked the World, this collective biography offers engaging profiles of women who achieved great success at a young age.
It’s unusual to find Joan of Arc, the Brontë sisters, Harriet Tubman, Coco Chanel, Rigoberta Menchu, Wilma Rudolph, and Natalie Portman in the same company. What they have in common is that they made their marks on the world before the age of 20. In an appealing, conversational style, McCann presents short biographies of young women from all over the world, from ancient to contemporary, who prove that youth need not prevent one making a difference. Familiar names such as Sacagawea, Helen Keller, S.E. Hinton and Mother Teresa share the pages with Laura Bassi (an 18th-century Italian physicist), Queen Salote Tupou III (mid-20th-century queen of Tonga), the Night Witches (Russian fighter pilots during World War II) and Adriana Ocampo (a planetary geologist from Argentina now living in the United States). Intertwined with the profiles are comments from teenage girls expressing intentions to rock the world.
An inspiring, empowering compendium. (bibliography, websites, endnotes) (Nonfiction. 11 & up)Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-58270-361-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Beyond Words/Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
Categories: CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Well-documented proof that, when it came to early automobiles, it wasn’t just men who took the wheel.
Despite relentlessly flashy page design that is more distracting than otherwise and a faint typeface sure to induce eyestrain, this companion to Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (2011) chronicles decided shifts in gender attitudes and expectations as it puts women (American women, mostly) behind the wheel in the first decades of the 20th century. Sidebar profiles and features, photos, advertisements, and clippings from contemporary magazines and newspapers festoon a revved-up narrative that is often set in angular blocks for added drama. Along with paying particular attention to women who went on the road to campaign for the vote and drove ambulances and other motor vehicles during World War I, Macy recounts notable speed and endurance races, and she introduces skilled drivers/mechanics such as Alice Ramsey and Joan Newton Cuneo. She also diversifies the predominantly white cast with nods to Madam C.J. Walker, her daughter, A’Lelia (both avid motorists), and the wartime Colored Women’s Motor Corps. An intro by Danica Patrick, checklists of “motoring milestones,” and an extended account of an 1895 race run and won by men do more for the page count than the overall story—but it’s nonetheless a story worth the telling.
Macy wheels out another significant and seldom explored chapter in women’s history. (index, statistics, source notes, annotated reading list) (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4263-2697-4
Page Count: 96
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
Categories: CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | CHILDREN'S HISTORY
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This straightforward biography engages young readers’ imaginations, respects their intelligence and takes them along on an exciting, real-life adventure.
From Chuck Yeager’s childhood in the Depression, through his experience in World War II, flight school and finally his chance to pilot the first supersonic flight, this debut children’s book brings his biography to life and includes a science lesson for eager young minds, as well. Biermann expertly weaves vignettes from Yeager’s life—like the time he plowed a test plane through a chicken coop—into the narrative, creating a tale with a cinematic, easy-to-follow rhythm. These anecdotes illustrate Yeager’s character in a natural, show-don’t-tell fashion. Biermann’s explanation of the science behind sound waves, the sound barrier and supersonic flight is so clear and memorable, it’s sure to stick with readers well into their adulthood. (Some adults who read this to kids will be relieved to have this burden lifted from them, so they don’t have to sputter out shaky explanations themselves.) While this story may inspire a lifelong interest in science, it’s unlikely to inspire a lifelong love of poetic language. From the very first paragraph—“Chuck Yeager loved to fly airplanes. He loved to fly high. He loved to fly fast.”—the language is a bit unadorned. But it is crystal clear, precise and geared with almost mathematical accuracy to a young elementary reading level. Science- and adventure-minded readers who are just here for the sonic boom won’t care that the book reads more like a technical manual than poetry. The illustrations are of a piece with the language: precise down to the buttons and badges on Yeager’s flight suit but flat and stylized, reminiscent of old-school film strips. And, like the language, while the illustrations are not inspiring or beautiful, they are perfectly suited to the book’s likely audience, who will probably be scrutinizing the cockpit controls.
An excellent work of children’s nonfiction that just may inspire the next Chuck Yeager.Pub Date: Dec. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1480276321
Page Count: 48
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: CHILDREN'S BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR
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