Teens, particularly those fascinated by auto racing, should stick with the original adult edition.
The young readers’ adaptation of the adult title Faster (2020) by Bascomb, who is known for his award-winning The Nazi Hunters (2013).
The author begins this version with an account of Nazis in occupied Paris stealing files from the library of the Automobile Club de France, which organized the French Grand Prix, and then devotes leisurely chapters to the biographies of the principal characters: René Dreyfus, a renowned French auto racer; Rudi Caracciola, a German racing champion; and Lucy O’Reilly Schell, a wealthy American rally-car racer. Grand Prix auto racing was in its dangerous infancy; as speeds increased, sometimes averaging more than 120 mph, deaths became common. Caracciola fought his way back to competition after shattering his leg, eventually becoming the main driver for Mercedes (who fired Dreyfus when they learned he was Jewish) and for Hitler’s state-sponsored Silver Arrow cars. Schell decided to finance her own racing team and hired Dreyfus to drive the new Delahaye. Conflicting ideologies finally reached a climax in the 1938 Grand Prix at Pau, where Dreyfus won in an upset. Well-researched, meticulously documented, and enhanced by photographs and maps of race courses, the book unfortunately stalls at the start with overly detailed accounts of single races and an overall lack of pace.
Teens, particularly those fascinated by auto racing, should stick with the original adult edition. (author’s note, source notes, endnotes, photo and illustration credits, index) (Nonfiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-338-27741-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Scholastic Focus
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
Though not the most balanced, an enlightening look back for the queer future.
An adaptation for teens of the adult title A Queer History of the United States (2011).
Divided into thematic sections, the text filters LGBTQIA+ history through key figures in each era from the 1500s to the present. Alongside watershed moments like the 1969 Stonewall uprising and the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, the text brings to light less well-known people, places, and events: the 1625 free love colony of Merrymount, transgender Civil War hero Albert D.J. Cashier, and the 1951 founding of the Mattachine Society, to name a few. Throughout, the author and adapter take care to use accurate pronouns and avoid imposing contemporary terminology onto historical figures. In some cases, they quote primary sources to speculate about same-sex relationships while also reminding readers of past cultural differences in expressing strong affection between friends. Black-and-white illustrations or photos augment each chapter. Though it lacks the teen appeal and personable, conversational style of Sarah Prager’s Queer, There, and Everywhere (2017), this textbook-level survey contains a surprising amount of depth. However, the mention of transgender movements and activism—in particular, contemporary issues—runs on the slim side. Whereas chapters are devoted to over 30 ethnically diverse gay, lesbian, bisexual, or queer figures, some trans pioneers such as Christine Jorgensen and Holly Woodlawn are reduced to short sidebars.
Though not the most balanced, an enlightening look back for the queer future. (glossary, photo credits, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 14-18)Pub Date: June 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8070-5612-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
Conversational, sometimes playful—not the sort of book that would survive vetting by school-system censors these days, but a...
A lovely, lively historical survey that takes in Neanderthals, Hohenzollerns and just about everything in between.
In 1935, Viennese publisher Walter Neurath approached Gombrich, who would go on to write the canonical, bestselling Story of Art, to translate a history textbook for young readers. Gombrich volunteered that he could do better than the authors, and Neurath accepted the challenge, provided that a completed manuscript was on his desk in six weeks. This book, available in English for the first time, is the happy result. Gombrich is an engaging narrator whose explanations are charming if sometimes vague. (Take the kid-friendly definition of truffles: “Truffles,” he says, “are a very rare and special sort of mushroom.” End of lesson.) Among the subjects covered are Julius Caesar (who, Gombrich exults, was able to dictate two letters simultaneously without getting confused), Charlemagne, the American Civil War, Karl Marx, the Paris Commune and Kaiser Wilhelm. As he does, he offers mostly gentle but pointed moralizing about the past, observing, for instance, that the Spanish conquest of Mexico required courage and cunning but was “so appalling, and so shaming to us Europeans that I would rather not say anything more about it,” and urging his young readers to consider that perhaps not all factory owners were as vile as Marx portrayed them to be, even though the good owners “against their conscience and their natural instincts, often found themselves treating their workers in the same way”—which is to say, badly.
Conversational, sometimes playful—not the sort of book that would survive vetting by school-system censors these days, but a fine conception and summarizing of the world’s checkered past for young and old.Pub Date: Oct. 11, 2005
ISBN: 0-300-10883-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2005
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