After surveying the history of child labor, a premier nonfiction author for young adults presents a shocking report: Such exploitative use of young people is not just "a plague of the past." Meltzer uses numerous first-person accounts from investigators and young workers to document the sordid working conditions and meager pay that were characteristic during the period when American factories, mines, and mills were being built; employers fought efforts to regulate them as "socialistic" and eulogized the "character-building" benefits of working to children, especially immigrants. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 promised an end to exploitation; but the examples here show that it still exists, especially among immigrants and the poor, and is still justified with the same arguments from employers. Especially compelling are stories of teenagers dying in dangerous work situations. A rousing call for decency and social justice. (Nonfiction. 12+)
Pub Date: April 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-670-83128-X
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1994
A winner.
The trials of a high school basketball team trying to clinch the state title and the graphic novelist chronicling them.
The Dragons, Bishop O’Dowd High School’s basketball team, have a promising lineup of players united by the same goal. Backed by Coach Lou Richie, an alumnus himself, this could be the season the Oakland, California, private Catholic school breaks their record. While Yang (Team Avatar Tales, 2019, etc.), a math teacher and former National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, is not particularly sporty, he is intrigued by the potential of this story and decides to focus his next graphic novel on the team’s ninth bid for the state championship. Yang seamlessly blends a portrait of the Dragons with the international history of basketball while also tying in his own career arc as a graphic novelist as he tries to balance family, teaching, and comics. Some panels directly address the creative process, such as those depicting an interaction between Yang and a Punjabi student regarding the way small visual details cue ethnicity in different ways. This creative combination of memoir and reportage elicits questions of storytelling, memory, and creative liberty as well as addressing issues of equity and race. The full-color illustrations are varied in layout, effectively conveying intense emotion and heart-stopping action on the court. Yang is Chinese American, Richie is black, and there is significant diversity among the team members.
A winner. (notes, bibliography) (Graphic nonfiction. 13-18)Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-62672-079-4
Page Count: 448
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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PERSPECTIVES
Important for its frank sex talk but far less inclusive than it aims to be.
An exuberant guide to LGBT life takes the stance that “being L or G or B or T or * is SUPER FUN.”
Speaking with candor, humor, and enthusiasm, Dawson addresses topics from coming out to sexually transmitted infections to sex apps. With irreverent chapter titles like “Stereotypes Are Poo” and a chatty narrative voice, the tone is largely upbeat, though the author also touches on “some MEGA-SAD FACE topics” like discrimination. Easily readable tables and humorous cartoons further liven up the presentation. To add more perspectives, segments from interviewees who represent areas of the LGBT spectrum not represented by the author himself are also included. Chapters on sex and apps like Grindr are helpfully matter-of-fact, and readers hear from people who choose casual sex as well as those who prefer emotionally intimate relationships. The book is a U.K. import, and while U.S.–based readers shouldn’t have much trouble understanding Briticisms like “fancy” or “shag,” some of the anti-discrimination laws referenced won’t apply. More troubling, the book’s efforts to support transgender readers are undermined by persistent, thoughtless affirmations that biology really is destiny—for instance, when the author debunks the myth that “gay men are ‘girls’ ” with a jokey “Penis? Check! Yup, gay men are, in fact, male.”
Important for its frank sex talk but far less inclusive than it aims to be. (glossary, resources) (Nonfiction. 12-18)Pub Date: June 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4926-1782-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Review Posted Online: March 31, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
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BOOK REVIEW
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