by Samantha Seiple ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 3, 2017
A stirring, suspenseful true story of dangerous adventure and remarkable survival.
In this true, thrilling adventure story, 55-year-old former president Theodore Roosevelt joins an expedition to explore an uncharted river deep in the Amazon jungle and barely makes it out alive.
Long before he was president of the United States, Roosevelt was famous as an intrepid adventurer. While on a speaking tour of South America, Roosevelt receives an offer he cannot refuse: lead an expedition deep into a mostly unknown region of the Amazon to chart an unmapped river. Accompanying him are his son Kermit and renowned Brazilian explorer Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, quite similar to Roosevelt in stamina and temperament. The expedition is plagued with difficulties from the beginning. Besides having to trudge through thick, unforgiving jungle and navigate an unpredictably dangerous river with raging rapids and steep waterfalls, Roosevelt and his companions must endure myriad threats such as ferocious insects, malaria, near starvation, bloodthirsty piranhas, poisonous snakes, and hostile indigenous peoples. Seiple’s crisply written, briskly paced narrative brings the constant state of danger to the fore, smoothly weaving in quotations from primary sources. As close to death as he has ever been, Roosevelt characteristically remarks, "I did have a murderous trip down South, but it was mighty interesting." One unfortunate oversight is an absence of specific source notes for these quotations.
A stirring, suspenseful true story of dangerous adventure and remarkable survival. (photos, “Teddy’s Travel Tips,” timeline, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-70916-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
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by Ronald Takaki & adapted by Rebecca Stefoff ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 28, 2012
In either iteration, a provocative counter to conventional, blinkered views of our national story.
A classic framing of this country’s history from a multicultural perspective, clumsily cut and recast into more simplified language for young readers.
Veering away from the standard “Master Narrative” to tell “the story of a nation peopled by the world,” the violence- and injustice-laden account focuses on minorities, from African- Americans (“the central minority throughout our country’s history”), Mexicans and Native Americans to Japanese, Vietnamese, Sikh, Russian Jewish and Muslim immigrants. Stefoff reduces Takaki’s scholarly but fluid narrative (1993, revised 2008) to choppy sentences and sound-bite quotes. She also adds debatable generalizations, such as a sweeping claim that Native Americans “lived outside of white society’s borders,” and an incorrect one that the Emancipation Proclamation “freed the slaves.” Readers may take a stronger interest in their own cultural heritage from this broad picture of the United States as, historically, a tapestry of ethnic identities that are “separate but also shared”—but being more readable and, by page count at least, only about a third longer, the original version won’t be out of reach of much of the intended audience, despite its denser prose.
In either iteration, a provocative counter to conventional, blinkered views of our national story. (endnotes, glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 12-15)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-60980-416-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Seven Stories
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2012
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by Ronald Takaki & adapted by Rebecca Stefoff with Carol Takaki
by Nell Beram ; Carolyn Boriss-Krimsky ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 2013
Even rabid fans of Lennon or the 1960s will find new information and angles in this searching study.
On the verge of her 80th birthday (Feb. 18, 2013), Ono steps out of her iconic late husband’s shadow for a sympathetic profile.
The authors present her as a groundbreaking creative artist whose work has been misunderstood, not to say derided, for decades and who was unjustly vilified as the woman who broke up the Beatles. They describe a comfortable upbringing in Japan and the United States, childhood experiences in World War II and artistic development as part of New York’s avant-garde scene in the 1950s and early ’60s. The book goes on to chronicle her relationships with various husbands, including “soul mate” John Lennon, and her two children, life as a peace-activist celebrity in the ’70s, and (in much less detail) her activities, honors and exhibitions after Lennon’s death. The account is occasionally trite (“Yoko and John were stressed to the max”) or platitudinous, and it’s unlikely to persuade younger (or any) readers to appreciate Yoko’s creations—which run to works like an 80-minute film of naked rumps walking by and sets of chess pieces that are all the same color—as great art. Nevertheless, it does impart a good sense of conceptual and performance art’s purposes and expressions along with a detailed portrait of a complex woman who for several reasons has a significant place in our cultural history.
Even rabid fans of Lennon or the 1960s will find new information and angles in this searching study. (photos, timeline to 2009, resource lists) (Biography. 12-15)Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0444-4
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 30, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2012
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