A song of love vs. a cacophony of hate—all in a beautiful model of bookmaking.
A powerful and riveting account of an American couple in love when that love was ruled illegal in many American states.
In the early 1950s a boy and a girl in rural Virginia fell in love and got married. Her family was “descended / from African slaves. / And their owners.” He was white. Their love was scorned and against the law in their state. The couple, Mildred and Richard Loving, alternate and sometimes join together to tell their stories in beautifully rendered free verse. Love, children, marriage, jail, flight to Washington, D.C., long court battles, and final unanimous vindication in 1967 from the Warren Supreme Court fill the pages, detailing every particle of their strong feelings for each other and the equally strong bigotry of the local sheriff and state judicial system. Full-page photographs of school segregation and civil rights demonstrations clearly set the time frame. Excerpts from court decisions, period headlines, and quotations from Dr. King strengthen the learning curve for readers. Strickland’s blue-, gray-, and yellow-toned illustrations have a strong retro feel and tenderly reinforce the written words.
A song of love vs. a cacophony of hate—all in a beautiful model of bookmaking. (timeline, bibliography, credits and sources) (Historical verse fiction. 11-18)Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2590-9
Page Count: 260
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
A delightfully captivating swatch of autobiography from the author of Kiss. Kiss, Switch Bitch and many others. Schoolboy Dahl wanted adventure. Classes bored him, there was work to be had in Africa, and war clouds loomed on the world's horizons. He finds himself with a trainee's job with Shell Oil of East Africa and winds up in what is now Tanzania. Then war comes in 1939 and Dahl's adventures truly begin. At the war's outbreak, Dahl volunteers for the RAF, signing on to be a fighter pilot. Wounded in the Libyan desert, he spends six months recuperating in a military hospital, then rejoins his unit in Greece, only to be driven back by the advancing Germans. On April 20, 1941, he goes head on against the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Athens. On-target bio installment with, one hopes, lots more of this engrossing life to come.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1986
ISBN: 0142413836
Page Count: 209
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1986
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Historian Bober (Abigail Adams, 1995, etc.) clearly and gracefully examines the exciting pre-Revolutionary period in Georgian England and its 13 North American colonies. A "braided" organization—one chapter devoted to Britain, starting with the accession of George III; the following to the events of the soon-to-be nation, culminating with Independence—charts the social and political ideas, actions, and personalities that changed history. With rapid-fire style and syntax, the author builds appropriate suspense, rendering the events and players vividly and moving the story along quickly. The large cast of characters is shown with all its faults as well as strengths—including George III, a decent family man out of his intellectual depth in a decidedly upended era. Many other historical figures—some famous, some not—are sketched in fine detail. And the book is replete with period illustrations of people and places, which with its clear identifications, provides a very helpful complement to the solid text. Bober asks: "What forces were at work that swept these people into a conflict that ultimately precipitated a shocking revolution and severed the ties between Britain and her American colonies?" Here is a quite successful attempt to explain just that. Stimulating, lively, and informative. Excellent documentation includes index (not seen), chronology, reference notes, list of characters, and an extensive bibliography. (Nonfiction. 12+)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-81329-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2001
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