A mostly true tale of mind over muscle, inspiring but flawed.
A tribute to the little-known unit of creative combatants assembled by the U.S. Army to mislead German forces during the invasion of Europe.
Marsh explains in her afterword that the work of the 1,000 or so soldiers officially designated the “23rd Headquarters Special Troops” was a well-kept secret until 2022—even though it included the likes of fashion designer Bill Blass and artist Ellsworth Kelly. Here, putting a fictive young artist named Charlie at the head of a group of enlisted “painters and creators and music-makers,” she describes how they used rubber tanks, uniforms with fake insignia, huge noise machines, and other ploys to deceive the Germans about American troop placement and movements from D-Day to the war’s end. Though the author vividly suggests how scary it must have been to outface an armed enemy with no real defenses, except for “Operation Bettembourg” (when the so-called “Ghost Army” held a 20-mile gap in the Allied front for eight days until relief troops could arrive), she glances over specific exploits. Steer tantalized older readers to Rebecca Siegel’s How the Ghost Army Hoodwinked Hitler (2025) for more detail—and also a better set of illustrations than Stadtlander’s staid views of generic war-torn countryside and distant figures in uniforms lounging at ease or posing alongside inflatable rubber tanks.
A mostly true tale of mind over muscle, inspiring but flawed. (resources) (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: June 23, 2026
ISBN: 9780593691717
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An engaging and informative true story of perseverance and discovery.
Fern and Kulikov, collaborators on the picture-book biographies Barnum’s Bones (2012) and W is for Webster (2015), bring the self-taught archaeologist who discovered King Tut’s tomb to life.
Howard Carter’s obsession with mummies began when he was a boy in England and visited a nearby mansion filled with ancient Egyptian artifacts. Carter dreamed of discovering a mummy himself. At 17, he took a job copying ancient art for the Egypt Exploration Fund. Awed by the art and architecture he sketched and copied, Carter was eager to make discoveries of his own. He taught himself the methodologies of archaeology, Arabic, geology, Egyptian history, and how to read hieroglyphics. As an antiquities inspector for the Egyptian government, Carter excavated several tombs only to find they had been looted. Undaunted, Carter devised a plan to excavate every unsearched inch in the Valley of the Kings. His dogged persistence paid off in 1922 when he discovered the treasure-filled tomb of Tutankhamun. Quoting from Carter’s own account, Fern infuses her story with excitement. She describes Carter as having a “funky personality” with a “stubborn attitude and worse table manners”; Kulikov’s exaggerated illustrations energetically capture Carter’s ambition and fascination with his subject.
An engaging and informative true story of perseverance and discovery. (author’s note, bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-374-30305-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
A tad rough around the edges but, visually, at least, a keeper.
A planet's-eye view of some recent visitors from Earth—one in particular.
In measured, deceptively solemn prose, the narrator (Mars itself, as eventually revealed) gets off to a shaky start, observing that the rover rolls on and on, making straight tracks that confusingly become a tangle on the next page. Things settle down thereafter: “It observes. Measures. Collects. It is always looking for water. Maybe it is thirsty.” Roy matches the tone with a set of broad, rugged, achingly remote-looking Mars-scapes that culminate in a wildly swirling dust storm followed by a huge double gatefold: “Everything is… / RED as far as the eye can see. But it is beautiful.” Curiosity itself she depicts with almost clinical precision (though its wheels look different from different angles), adding a schematic view at the end with select parts and instruments labeled. Following playful nods to other rovers along the way (Spirit and Opportunity “had a spirit of adventure and seized every opportunity to explore”), a substantial quantity of backmatter includes more information about each one—including the next one up, Mars 2020—as well as about the fourth planet itself. For audience appeal it’s hard to beat Markus Motum’s cheerfully anthropomorphic Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover (2018), but the art here, in adding a certain grandeur and mystery to the red planet, has an appeal of its own.
A tad rough around the edges but, visually, at least, a keeper. (bibliography) (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-19833-4
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
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