Has broad appeal for teens and adults interested in plant-based cooking.
A food consultant, health coach, and blogger offers resources for a vegan diet.
This cookbook outlines the basics of veganism—a lifestyle that eschews the use of animal products—and includes a short overview of animal welfare and environmental motives behind this choice. Webster focuses on the benefits of making more mindful rather than perfect decisions, i.e., being “more vegan” as opposed to an all-or-nothing approach. Advice on nutrition, suggestions for food substitutions, a list of pantry essentials, and brief basic cooking tips precede the recipe section. From soups to pasta to curries, these plant-based dishes (containing no meat, eggs, or dairy) cover a range of tempting options for all tastes, and each recipe is accompanied by a bright, colorful photo. No boring salads to be seen here: The creative selections include a harissa falafel burger, hoisin jackfruit burritos, and millionaire’s shortbread for dessert. While the instructions are clear, some recipes are more advanced; homemade sauces and dressings abound, and many recipes require a food processor. A glossary includes useful terms, explanations of cooking techniques and less-familiar ingredients, and recommendations for further reading and resources. The bright, clean design with cheerful graphics in shades of pink, green, and blue help make this an inviting read. Those seeking in-depth reasons for going vegan will not be sated, but for anyone already interested in this topic, this is a fine choice.
Has broad appeal for teens and adults interested in plant-based cooking. (index) (Nonfiction. 12-18)Pub Date: July 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-78312-661-3
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Welbeck Children's
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
A compelling true-crime story with a can’t-lose hook.
A young Canadian man spends 17 years in prison for a murder he did not commit.
Long-haired, 19-year-old Kyle Unger had a reputation as a troublemaker. On the night of June 23, 1990, Kyle and his best friend made a last-minute decision to attend the Woodstick Music Festival in Manitoba. The teens had fun at the festival playing games, listening to bands, drinking; they didn’t head home till morning. Later that morning, the body of 16-year-old Brigitte Grenier was found in a creek, having been savagely beaten and sexually assaulted before being strangled. By the next week, Kyle was charged with her murder. Releasing him due to insufficient evidence, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were still convinced Kyle was the killer. The RCMP laid a trap for Kyle called the “Mr. Big” operation, tricking him into confessing to a murder he did not commit. Convicted and sentenced to prison in 1992, Kyle spent 17 years fighting to prove his innocence until his acquittal in 2009. Brignall chronicles Kyle’s ordeal in a fast-paced, detailed narrative that relies heavily on court transcripts and features copious dialogue (not specifically sourced). Admirably, the coverage of the trial and Unger’s post-conviction legal proceedings are as absorbing as the accounts of the murder and investigation.
A compelling true-crime story with a can’t-lose hook. (photos, timeline, glossary, further reading, index) (Nonfiction. 13 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4594-0863-0
Page Count: 136
Publisher: James Lorimer
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Painstaking, judicious, and by no means exculpatory but with hints of sympathy.
A portrait of two victims of the Great Depression whose taste for guns and fast cars led to short careers in crime but longer ones as legends.
Blumenthal (Hillary Rodham Clinton, 2016, etc.) makes a determined effort to untangle a mare’s nest of conflicting eyewitness accounts, purple journalism, inaccurate police reports, and self-serving statements from relatives and cohorts of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. Though the results sometimes read as dry recitations of names and indistinguishable small towns, she makes perceptive guesses about what drove them and why they have become iconic figures, along with retracing their early lives, two-year crime spree, and subsequent transformations into doomed pop-culture antiheroes. She does not romanticize the duo—giving many of their murder victims faces through individual profiles, for instance, and describing wounds in grisly detail—but does convincingly argue that their crimes and characters (particularly Bonnie’s) were occasionally exaggerated. Blumenthal also wrenchingly portrays the desperation that their displaced, impoverished families must have felt while pointedly showing how an overtaxed, brutal legal system can turn petty offenders into violent ones. A full version of Bonnie’s homespun ballad “The Story of Bonnie and Clyde” and notes on the subsequent lives of significant relatives, accomplices, and lawmen join meaty lists of sources and interviews at the end.
Painstaking, judicious, and by no means exculpatory but with hints of sympathy. (photos, timeline, author’s note, source notes, bibliography, index) (Biography. 12-14)Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-451-47122-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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