Pirates have a romantic image that Meltzer (Case Closed, p. 1130, etc.) effectively undermines in this history of piracy in which he emphasizes the violence and callousness of pirates throughout the ages. Following the practice chronologically, from Homer to modern piracy of items like videos and music CDs, he recounts stories about famous pirates like Sir Francis Drake and Blackbeard, and devotes several pages to females. A section falling halfway through discusses who became pirates and why, everyday life on shipboard, and punishment of pirates by marooning them. One fascinating topic is the pirates’ codes of conduct, with one from the early-18th century reprinted in full. The numbered list explains that each man has an equal vote and a fair share of goods, lays out the punishment for desertion and the exact means for settling disputes, and more. Even with such direct quotations, though, Meltzer gives no citations. A selected bibliography provides the only documentation, a serious drawback in a work of nonfiction. The 96 pages are arranged in short sections of a page or two, each under a heading, rather than in longer chapters that might help readers organize the material in their minds. The very last section returns to the issue of romanticizing pirates with a brief look at books and movies that do so and then coming to a surprisingly abrupt close. (Nonfiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-525-45857-3
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2001
After witnessing the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany, Daniel is suddenly transported, at age 14, from his comfortable life in Frankfurt to a Polish ghetto, then to Auschwitz and Buchenwald—losing most of his family along the way, seeing Nazi brutality of both the casual and the calculated kind, and recording atrocities with a smuggled camera (``What has happened to me?...Who am I? Where am I going?''). Matas, explicating an exhibit of photos and other materials at the new United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, creates a convincing composite youth and experience—fictional but carefully based on survivors' accounts. It's a savage story with no attempt to soften the culpability of the German people; Daniel's profound anger is easier to understand than is his father's compassion or his sister's plea to ``chose love. Always choose love.'' Daniel survives to be reunited, after the war, with his wife-to-be, but his dying friend's last word echoes beyond the happy ending: ``Remember...'' An unusual undertaking, effectively carried out. Chronology; glossary. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-590-46920-7
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1993
Its focus firmly on the details of mountaineering in the French Alps and the Himalayas—mechanics, technique, lore, social milieu—a simplistic novel about an unlikely superheroine (though already making record-breaking climbs while still in her teens, her only major injury occurs early on when a guide hazes her by giving her a double load) who achieves worldwide recognition for her exploits in the 1950's. The tacked-on plot—minor setbacks, a romance with another climber—has less depth than most comic strips and reads like an old-fashioned adulatory biography. Roper is obviously well-acquainted with climbing, and for anyone interested in the subject there's a wealth of information here; he should have omitted the feeble story and added an index. (Fiction. 11-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 1991
ISBN: 0-316-75606-7
Page Count: 188
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1991
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