This attractive work will be welcomed by readers searching for guidance and hope.
LGBTQ culture and rights are covered through the prism of Pride in this timely work.
Beginning with gay history, Stevenson explains how Pride events began as a way to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall riots but have gradually shifted from focusing on gay liberation toward a celebration of gay pride. Yet while Pride events are held all over the world, whether small parades or weeklong celebrations, there are still struggles within the LGBTQ community and against those who identify as LGBTQ. But with the work of activists of all ages, Pride and LGBTQ rights can prevail against homophobia and other forms of discrimination. Using Pride as a way to talk about LGBTQ gives the information a new slant, yet Stevenson may confuse readers by vacillating between subjectivity and objectivity. She frequently uses the personal pronoun, flipping, even within a paragraph, from “some people wanted” to “we should,” muddying the waters a bit: is this a memoir or a piece of cultural and historical nonfiction? The appropriately rainbow-themed design features plentiful photographs, both black-and-white and color, in a lively design. They’ve been carefully chosen to highlight the diversity within the community, from First Nations drummers in a Vancouver parade to an Asian man holding hands with a white man in an Oslo celebration.
This attractive work will be welcomed by readers searching for guidance and hope. (glossary, references, resources, index, acknowledgments, author's note) (Nonfiction. 12-16)Pub Date: April 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4598-0993-2
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2016
After surveying “competing claims” for the first Thanksgiving from 1541 on, in Texas, Florida, Maine, Virginia and Massachusetts, Colman decides in favor of the 1621 event with the English colonists and Wampanoag as the first “because the 1621 event was more like the Thanksgiving that we celebrate today.” She demonstrates, however, that the “Pilgrim and Indian” story is really not the antecedent of Thanksgiving as we celebrate it today. Rather, two very old traditions—harvest festivals and days of thanksgiving for special events—were the origin, and this interesting volume traces how the custom of proclaiming a general day of thanksgiving took hold. Yet, since many Thanksgiving celebrations in towns and schools are still rooted in the “Pilgrim and Indian” story, which the author calls “true and important,” but which many Native Americans find objectionable, a more in-depth discussion of it is warranted here. The solid bibliography does include some fine resources, such as 1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving (2001) by Catherine O’Neill Grace and Margaret M. Bruchac. (author’s note, chronology, index) (Nonfiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-8050-8229-6
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Facile pop-psychology from a clinical psychologist with the credentials to know better. Assigning a chapter each to a select range of feelings—nearly all of them painful or negative ones, such as guilt, fear or anger, with but one shorter chapter allotted to the likes of love and joy—Lamia offers generalizations about what emotional responses look and feel like, typical circumstances that might cause them to arise and superficial insights (“Negative or worried thoughts spoil a good mood”). She also offers bland palliative suggestions (“Forgive yourself and move on”), self-quizzes, sound-bite comments in the margins from young people and, in colored boxes labeled “Psych Notes,” relevant research abstracts from cited but hard-to-obtain professional sources. Aside from a mildly discouraging view of “Infatuation,” she isn’t judgmental or prescriptive, but her overview is so cursory that she skips the stages of grief, makes no distinction between disgust and contempt and barely takes notice of depression. Teens and preteens might come away slightly more self-aware, but they won’t find either motivation or tools to help them cope with major upset. (Self-help. 12-16)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4338-0890-6
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Magination/American Psychological Association
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2010
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