A handsome overview, parochial for all its chronological scope.
Carried along on a broad ribbon of time that winds across oversized spreads, thousands of small images re-enact the human story.
Goes, a Belgian illustrator, begins with the Big Bang, but by the fifth spread, Lucy is peeking from behind a tree as Neanderthals stroll through a torch-lit cave. From there, each page turn offers a panoramic view of a whole civilization up through the Middle Ages, a single century from the 14th to the 19th, decades or half-decades post–World War I, and finally a glimpse of the “2010s” that ends with the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Now and then such diversions as “The Aztecs” or “Space travel” offer pauses in the march. The book is highly selective with both the hordes of stylized but recognizable artifacts and historical figures and the buckets of specific facts and dates scattered throughout. Still, the artist resorts to such extremes of compression that Native American cultures are largely distilled to a cluster of teepees around a totem pole near some buffalo, and one crowd listens to both Jimi Hendrix and “black religious leader” Martin Luther King Jr. while watching JFK motor and singing anti-war songs. It’s an ingenious use of space—but with few exceptions, the world beyond Europe and North America barely figures. The absence of an index makes this a browsing item rather than a resource.
A handsome overview, parochial for all its chronological scope. (Nonfiction. 9-12)Pub Date: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-776570-69-0
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Gecko Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care.
In 1977, the oil carrier Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into a formerly pristine Alaskan ocean inlet, killing millions of birds, animals, and fish. Despite a cleanup, crude oil is still there.
The Winters foretold the destructive powers of the atomic bomb allusively in The Secret Project (2017), leaving the actuality to the backmatter. They make no such accommodations to young audiences in this disturbing book. From the dark front cover, on which oily blobs conceal a seabird, to the rescuer’s sad face on the back, the mother-son team emphasizes the disaster. A relatively easy-to-read and poetically heightened text introduces the situation. Oil is pumped from the Earth “all day long, all night long, / day after day, year after year” in “what had been unspoiled land, home to Native people // and thousands of caribou.” The scale of extraction is huge: There’s “a giant pipeline” leading to “enormous ships.” Then, crash. Rivers of oil gush out over three full-bleed wordless pages. Subsequent scenes show rocks, seabirds, and sea otters covered with oil. Finally, 30 years later, animals have returned to a cheerful scene. “But if you lift a rock… // oil / seeps / up.” For an adult reader, this is heartbreaking. How much more difficult might this be for an animal-loving child?
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care. (author’s note, further reading) (Informational picture book. 9-12)Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3077-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
IN THE NEWS
Playful, provocative, and packed with perspective.
Did Christopher Columbus really “discover” a new world? Did the Pilgrims invite the Wampanoag to a friendly First Thanksgiving? Is July 4 truly the nation’s birthday?
Readers familiar with traditional narratives of America’s founding are invited to interrogate those myths in this interactive exploration of early U.S. history. A strong introductory framework asks whose stories endure and whose have been erased from the history books, emphasizing that Indigenous peoples remain part of the present, not just the past. Each spread presents a common misconception, then asks readers to flip assumptions aside by lifting a partial gatefold that reveals the true story beneath. Well-sourced explanations elevate figures and communities often excluded from history books, including women, Black Americans, and Indigenous peoples. Bold colors, graphic-heavy layouts, and energetic illustrations that make creative use of historical photos and images break complex ideas into bite-size pieces that encourage browsing over linear reading. A timeline, speech bubbles, and lift-the-flap “True or False” quizzes reinforce the book’s core message: History is layered, debatable, and dynamic. Though the book’s busy, nonlinear design may prove challenging for some, on the whole it works very well as an engaging historical overview. The content assumes a foundational knowledge of early U.S. history, making it most suitable for older elementary readers, though some visual choices skew younger. Backmatter includes more historical information and background on the book’s creation.
Playful, provocative, and packed with perspective. (glossary, resources, photo credits) (Nonfiction. 9-11)Pub Date: May 26, 2026
ISBN: 9798888599082
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Barefoot Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
PERSPECTIVES
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