With its companion, great thinkers viewed from unusual angles—but better as refreshers than first introductions.
Cheerfully bidding readers to chill (“Don’t be afraid! It’s only a sheet!”), the ghostly Marx rises up to explain the origins of his social philosophy.
The narrator uses the example of Silesian peasants—who, forced off their farms, forced to take up work as weavers in the city, then forced into factories at starvation wages, rebelled (this was in 1844, though the date doesn’t come up here) and were massacred—to explain the desperate need for an alternative to the market system. A succession of capitalist oppressors delivers variations on “it is not my fault; these are the rules of the Market!” as a refrain. Following a visit with ruthless tycoon “Das Kapital,” he proposes a “labor theory of value” and the abolition of private property. In the end, with a promise to come back and “haunt the world, to try and unite it around my radical solutions!” he sails off to pay a call on “Miss Wall Street Panic!” Printed on rough paper and illustrated with garishly colored, posterlike scenes of massed workers, smoking factories, and clouds of numbers and gears, this sympathetic introduction to basic Marxism harkens back to tracts produced during the Soviet Union’s earlier days. Co-published in the same format but with mildly humorous scenes of doll-like figures with huge, staring eyes, Jean Paul Mongin’s account of The Death of Socrates (illustrated by Yann Le Bras and also translated by Street) paraphrases passages from The Apology and other dialogues to present Socratic ideas and methods of discourse.
With its companion, great thinkers viewed from unusual angles—but better as refreshers than first introductions. (Philosophy. 12-15)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2015
ISBN: 978-3-03734-545-0
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Diaphanes/Univ. of Chicago
Review Posted Online: June 22, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
A good story with some unexpected twists
After saving the life of a famous model, a 14-year-old Mexican-American boy learns the pressures of popularity and the definition of true heroism.
Dallas freshman Rawly Sánchez knows that life is not perfect. His older brother Jaime is in prison, while his mother’s Mexican restaurant is barely staying afloat. Now, he can’t even visit his brother on Saturdays anymore, or he will miss the required tutoring for the algebra class he is failing. Small bursts of happiness come in the comic books he loves and in hanging out with his nerdy, often-annoying, wisecracking Jewish best friend Nevin Steinberg. Things take a turn for the worse when someone accidentally sets a pig loose in his mom’s restaurant, and the incident makes the local news. Then, Nevin talks Rawly into performing as a duo at the school talent show, where he makes a fool of himself in front of his crush, Miyoko. Everything changes when Rawly misses his bus stop and ends up rescuing 22-year-old model Nikki Demetrius when her car plunges into a river. Instantly, Rawly is on the local and national news, hailed as a hero for saving Nikki’s life. The third-person narration follows Rawley’s journey as he learns who his real friends are and the difference between comic-book and real-world heroes.
A good story with some unexpected twists . (Fiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-55885-711-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Arte Público
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This potentially inspiring tale staggers along under the weight of a worthy agenda.
A general indictment of apartheid is thinly wrapped in a tale about a young Zulu marathoner who runs for his country in the Olympics.
When police fire into a crowd watching a peaceful demonstration, they orphan young Samuel and his two older brothers, radicalizing the latter. In later years one brother loses his mind on Robben Island, and the other is killed in a gun battle. Samuel, though, grows up to leverage his love of running barefoot over his dusty tribal “homeland” into a spot on South Africa’s Olympics team after apartheid collapses and Mandela is freed. Riordan loosely bases his disconnected main plot on the experiences of Josiah Thugwane, the first black gold medalist from South Africa. He begins his book with the graphically depicted opening massacre, closely followed by a disturbingly gruesome hospital scene. To these he adds angry rhetoric (“Where was British justice now?”) and ugly words when Samuel goes to get a passbook and later boards a “Whites Only” train car by mistake. For readers who still aren't with the program, he provides infodumps about South Africa’s racial history and the African National Congress and a triumphant set piece when Samuel casts a vote in his first national election. Samuel runs (and wins) the climactic race with a letter from Mandela tucked in his shoe.
This potentially inspiring tale staggers along under the weight of a worthy agenda. (afterword) (Historical fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-84507-934-5
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: March 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2012
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