A thoughtful, engaging history for intermediate students interested in Africa.
Oliver’s debut, about one of West Africa’s most powerful and charismatic leaders, delivers a vibrant mix of history and historical fiction for young adults.
The book introduces the medieval empire of Mali with several short narrative essays on trans-Atlantic exploration, trade and mining and soon narrows its focus to the compelling life story of the emperor Mansa Musa, who ruled Mali in the early 1300s. Oliver shows how Musa gained influence while making a lavish, politically important trip to Mecca, and his deft explanation of how Musa crossed the vast Sahara Desert briefly but skillfully conveys the difficulty of the lengthy voyage. This enjoyable work smoothly blends historical text with memorable anecdotes from primary and secondary sources, photos and sketches of replicas of ancient and medieval African art, and well-drawn maps. The book moves at a fast pace, and the author’s clear, straightforward style is likely to appeal to young adults. He easily switches between topics, discussing history (how Musa gained recognition in Egypt and North Africa), religion (how Islam shaped Musa and his empire), architecture (the methods of construction for Malian mud-brick buildings) and fables (the legend of the Malian “gold plant”). However, Oliver always strives for historical accuracy; even his fictional account of a young sandal maker who travels to Niani’s great market contains period-appropriate language and scenery. The book also includes a lengthy glossary that is amply illustrated with drawings and photographs of West African boats and buildings. The work’s one shortcoming is its abrupt ending after Musa returns home; it lacks a thorough explanation as to how and why the empire of Mali eventually dissolved.
A thoughtful, engaging history for intermediate students interested in Africa.Pub Date: March 26, 2013
ISBN: 978-1468053548
Page Count: 128
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 31, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Born in 1880 in a tiny backwater in Alabama, Helen Keller lived a life familiar to many from the play and movie The Miracle Worker, as well as countless biographies. There’s no denying the drama in the story of the deaf and blind child for whom the world of language became possible through a dedicated and fanatically stubborn teacher, Annie Sullivan. But Helen’s life after that is even more remarkable: she went to high school and then to Radcliffe; she was a radical political thinker and a member of the Wobblies; she supported herself by lecture tours and vaudeville excursions as well as through the kindness of many. Dash (The Longitude Prize, p. 1483) does a clear-sighted and absorbing job of examining Annie’s prickly personality and the tender family that she, Helen, and Annie’s husband John Macy formed. She touches on the family pressures that conspired to keep Helen from her own pursuit of love and marriage; she makes vivid not only Helen’s brilliant and vibrant intelligence and personality, but the support of many people who loved her, cared for her, and served her. She also does not shrink from the describing the social and class divisions that kept some from crediting Annie Sullivan and others intent on making Helen into a puppet and no more. Riveting reading for students in need of inspiration, or who’re overcoming disability or studying changing expectations for women. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-590-90715-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
An inviting portrayal of a legendary political leader.
South African revolutionary Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom (1994), adapted in graphic form.
The original found millions of readers worldwide. Since comics often cross cultural boundaries and enable semiliterate and beginning readers to gain easier access to texts, this could find an even more diverse audience. In the foreword, Mandela writes that, for older readers “whose eyesight is not what it was, there is the option of simply looking at the pictures.” That good-natured remark is characteristic of the man. The story opens with his birth in 1918 and the giving of his all-too-appropriate birth name, Rolihlahla, “troublemaker.” The Mandela family was removed from its village by magisterial decree, the first in a long line of encounters between Mandela and authorities working to serve the apartheid state. The drawings, produced by the Umlando Wezithombe collective of graphic artists and illustrators, are detail-heavy and sophisticated, though most of the white characters are on the cartoonish side, all snarls and drool. One major exception is Bill Clinton, who figures in the later pages and whom the artists capture in a perfectly nuanced pose, left hand on chin, pensive look on brow. The story line takes the reader through the complexities of the apartheid regime and Mandela’s legal troubles with it, and his release from maximum-security prison at Robben Island after decades of imprisonment as anticlimactic as it was in real life. It also depicts his near-overnight transition from outlaw to national leader with much the confusion and uncertainty that Mandela himself must have felt. “You know that you are really famous the day you discover that you have become a comic character,” he writes.
An inviting portrayal of a legendary political leader.Pub Date: July 18, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-393-07082-8
Page Count: 204
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2009
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