paper 0-15-202052-7 According to the introduction, this gathering of poetry from Europe and the Americas began as clippings in a shoebox, collected over years by Willard (Magic Cornfield, 1997, etc). The selections are meaty, with D.H. Lawrence’s three-line “The White Horse” and Robert Frost’s deliciously eerie, six-page dialogue, “The Witch of Coîs,” at the extremes for length, and make an eclectic mix, leaning toward newer poets but including a Mother Goose rhyme, Christopher Smart’s “For I Will Consider My Cat Jeoffry,” and “Donal Og,” a traditional lament for love betrayed. The arrangement is, broadly, by subject, beginning with Emily Dickinson’s “Will There Really Be a ‘Morning’?” and closing with poems featuring night, death, and dreams. Selections in between touch on wind and water, sensory epiphanies (Pablo Neruda sings an “Ode to a Pair of Socks” while Theodore Roethke’s “Slug” is about stepping on one), animals, children, old folk, and even bodies, as in Lucille Clifton’s “Homage to My Hips.” Few of the poems were written specifically for an audience of the young, but those who aren’t thrown by e.e. cummings’s “If there are any heavens my mother will (all by herself) have” should comprehend the syntax and content of the rest. It’s a highly personal collection, chosen with a fine ear for language and rightfully commended by Willard for “celebrating the ordinary in an unordinary way.” (Poetry. 8-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-15-201849-2
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1998
With an emphasis on Western “makers” of the millennium, and, perhaps inevitably, deep coverage of the last 200 years and fleeting coverage of the first few centuries, this volume offers brief biographical sketches of 1,000 people who had an impact on the last 1,000 years. Profusely illustrated and printed on heavy glossy stock, this is a coffee table book for children, meant to be dipped into rather than read from start to finish. Organized chronologically, with a chapter for each century, the parade of people is given context through a timeline of major events, with those of particular importance discussed in special boxes. As with any effort of this kind, there are surprising omissions (the publisher is creating a website for readers’ own suggestions) and inclusions, a Western predominance that grows more pronounced in the later centuries, and an emphasis on sports and celebrity that finishes off the last few decades. The selection can seem highly subjective and provocatively arbitrary, e.g., the US presidents from Nixon back to Teddy Roosevelt are all covered, but none after Nixon. Still, there is a clear effort to include a wide variety of countries and cultures, and this ambitious effort will be the starting point for many historical journeys. (chronology, index) (Nonfiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7894-4709-6
Page Count: 256
Publisher: DK Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
The author of the century-old, still-beloved Little Women led an extraordinarily interesting life herself, as Warrick makes plain in this dutiful biography. Alcott’s often-absent father, full of educational dreams and schemes and a friend of Emerson, her hard-working and hard-pressed mother, and her three sisters (models, as is well-known, for the siblings in the book) moved a great deal as she was growing up. Alcott soon realized that if there was to be money, she had to make it, and found a career writing sensational trash under a pseudonym and wonderful family stories under her own name. The biography opens with the story of Alcott’s letters from a Civil War hospital where she worked as a nurse, published in Boston Commonwealth magazine and her first real literary success. Vignettes and quotations enliven the text, which is written in a direct and straightforward style. Alcott’s work as a feminist and her possible love life are mentioned, if briefly. For those seeking yet another biography, this will serve. (b&w photos, not seen, chronology, notes, glossary, index) (Biography. 10-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7660-1254-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Enslow
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
BOOK REVIEW
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