Contradictory statements, sweeping generalizations, and a general lack of focus make this history of slavery more an eye-glazer than an eye-opener. After asserting that "more often than not, slave and master were of the same ethnic or cultural group," Watkins (Gladiator, 1997) proceeds to note that the ancient Greeks, Romans, West African kingdoms, medieval Italians, Muslims, and, of course, European settlers in the Americas, all imported their slaves from elsewhere. He also mentions indentured labor in some cultures but not in America, is silent on the history of slavery in most Asian countries, and confuses the "Triangle Trade" that included European goods and ports with another triangle that did not. Except for occasional quoted or paraphrased passages from a handful of slave narratives, he seldom names specific sources for his information, and the pitifully inadequate eight-item bibliography isn't going to be much help to readers who want to delve more deeply into the subject. The drab, low-contrast illustrations feature sad-faced figures in mannered mini-dramas with captions like, "Greek warriors lead a captured girl and her baby into slavery," or "The Taino Indians would regret meeting Columbus." A final chapter on modern child slavery, including a short profile of murdered young activist Iqbal Masih, gives this a topical leg up on Ofosu-Appiah's People in Bondage: A World History of Slavery (1993), but Watkins has turned a heart- and gut-wrenching subject into a clumsy, extended term paper. (Nonfiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-395-92289-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
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
paper 1-895688-87-6 Day uses the prehistoric tale of a young girl coming to terms with her fear of bears to explore the world of cave art. Quennu might be able to handle woolly mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers, but cave bears give her the willies. Her clan’s shaman gives her a bear tooth as a talisman to conquer her fear. On the day when the shaman summons all the people to the cave for an ecstatic painting ceremony, Quennu enters the cave after the others have gone on ahead. At one point she is sure she sees the fiery eyes of an enormous cave bear, yet she carries on, the tooth giving her strength. When she finds her clan in the shadowscape of a great chamber, they are singing and dancing and chanting and applying brushes to the cave walls. Quennu joins in, painting the bear, and putting to rest her fears of the creature, but not her respect for it. Day delivers charged, swirling color and smoky imagery in her illustrations, plus the frisson of transportive mystery that may turn children into future history majors. An explanatory page at the end puts the action into context. (Picture book. 7-11)
Pub Date: April 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-895688-86-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Firefly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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