A pair of books considering the Middle Ages via topical arrangement; the other, simultaneously published, is Medieval People. In both, the device is fairly effective in shedding light on what it was like to live in Western Europe between the fifth and fifteenth centuries. Introducing locales like ``The Field,'' ``The Road,'' ``The Parish Church,'' or ``The University'' with brief quotes from the period (mostly identified, e.g. as from Froissart, Chaucer, or ``a medieval writer''), Howarth covers each in just three pages, adequate to bring together some useful concepts about ``The Forest'' (the royal monopoly on game, forest law, poachers, Robin Hood) but less useful for those that have been treated in depth elsewhere (``The Castle''). The format is attractive, with well-chosen period illustrations, half in color. Many of the captions give time and place; others, like the text, perpetuate the erroneous impression that the entire millennium was dominated by a single well-ordered society. Also, some pictures are reproduced so small that the point is hard to discern—e.g., a tapestry meant to contrast the costumes of peasants and nobility. Overall: useful supplementary material in the standard British-import style, with plenty of facts and little interpretation or new insights; choppy but serviceable prose and interesting arrangement. Glossary; further reading (just eight other textbook-like books); index. (Nonfiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Jan. 15, 1992
ISBN: 1-56294-152-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Millbrook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1991
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care.
In 1977, the oil carrier Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into a formerly pristine Alaskan ocean inlet, killing millions of birds, animals, and fish. Despite a cleanup, crude oil is still there.
The Winters foretold the destructive powers of the atomic bomb allusively in The Secret Project (2017), leaving the actuality to the backmatter. They make no such accommodations to young audiences in this disturbing book. From the dark front cover, on which oily blobs conceal a seabird, to the rescuer’s sad face on the back, the mother-son team emphasizes the disaster. A relatively easy-to-read and poetically heightened text introduces the situation. Oil is pumped from the Earth “all day long, all night long, / day after day, year after year” in “what had been unspoiled land, home to Native people // and thousands of caribou.” The scale of extraction is huge: There’s “a giant pipeline” leading to “enormous ships.” Then, crash. Rivers of oil gush out over three full-bleed wordless pages. Subsequent scenes show rocks, seabirds, and sea otters covered with oil. Finally, 30 years later, animals have returned to a cheerful scene. “But if you lift a rock… // oil / seeps / up.” For an adult reader, this is heartbreaking. How much more difficult might this be for an animal-loving child?
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care. (author’s note, further reading) (Informational picture book. 9-12)Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3077-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
Partly filling the historical gap between their New Americans: Colonial Times, 1620-1689 (1998) and A More Perfect Union: The Story of Our Constitution (1987), the Maestros examine King William’s War, Queen Anne’s War, the War of Jenkins’ Ear, and other half-forgotten conflicts usually lumped together as the French and Indian Wars. Concluding that these wars were fought for economic control of North America and paralleled the first stirrings of a sense of national unity, the authors trace the growth of trade routes and other lines of communication. They also pay close attention to the wars’ consistently lamentable effects on the Native American groups allied with either the French or the British forces. Though much of the fighting and strategic maneuvering took place in what is now Canada, the Maestros take their most widely angled views of territories that became part of the United States. With plenty of precisely drafted battle scenes, street plans, portraits, maps, and landscapes, plus a spread of additional information on topics as diverse as colonial money and the Iroquois League, they bring a formative era in our country’s history into sharp focus for young readers. (index) (Nonfiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2000
ISBN: 0-688-13450-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2000
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