The dramatic and bloody story of Hungary, from its ancient origins to its contemporary attempts at democracy, is recounted in this conscientious but tepid history. Although Hill opens with the fantastic battles of the Magyars—the warriors who ruled over the territory as far back as the ninth century—the prose is straightforward and faithful, without any excitement. While Hill parades tidbits—e.g., Hungarian goulash is really more of a soup than a thick stew, or that the country's capital, Budapest, was once three towns (Buda, Obuda, and Pest)—he is also careful to document more serious matters, such as the rise of anti-Semitism through WW II. From the Red and White Terrors to the failed 1956 uprising against the USSR, Hungary is a country of contradictions, seeming at once greedy, then open-hearted; Hill's text covers all essential facts but may fail to stir students of history. (b&w photos, index, not seen, chronology, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 12+)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-8160-3120-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Facts On File
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1996
1885
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-689-82118-2
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1999
It took four weeks for illustrations of scenes from the US’s Civil War battles to make it from the front lines to readers’ hands; Morrison (Cheetah, 1998, etc.) explains that process in his uniquely handsome book. Morrison introduces the fictional artist, William Forbes, commissioned by the fictional Burton’s Illustrated News to follow the Union Army into battle at Bull Run. Throughout the day’s fighting Forbes makes quick sketches; it is risky business, and he is often in mortal peril. That night he makes a more complete drawing, which is handed to a courier and taken back to the Burton offices. There, engravers set to work translating Forbes’s drawing to a grid of wood blocks (Morrison includes interesting incidentals along the way, giving the process its due). The images are converted to electrotype, whereafter it is finally ready for the operators and pressman. Shortly after that, the newsboys are seen hawking the illustrated weekly, containing Forbes’s image a mere month after the actual event. Morrison successfully renders the complexities of illustrating newspapers 150 years ago, and just as successfully conveys that in abandoning the wood block for the photograph, some of the art was sacrificed for speed. (glossary) (Picture book. 6-10)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-91426-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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