A bold, sympathetic, well-written account of a perplexing and complicated subject.
A meticulously researched account of Mary Surratt, whose still-disputed role in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln led to her becoming the first woman executed by the United States government.
No one disputed the fact that actor John Wilkes Booth fired the shot that killed Lincoln. A simultaneous, fortuitously nonfatal, attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward made it immediately clear that a conspiracy was involved. In the weeks following, with Booth dead, seven men were arrested for the crime—and one woman, Surratt. A widow, devout Catholic, and former enslaver, Surratt owned and ran a boardinghouse where Booth sometimes met with the other defendants. From the start, newspapers reviled her and, during the trial, wrote sexist, prejudicial accounts of her description and actions. The trial itself, run by a military tribunal, was biased in favor of the guilt of the accused. Surratt was sentenced to death, refused clemency by President Andrew Johnson, and hung the following day. The controversy surrounding her execution did not die, however; conflicting testimony by her former boarder Louis Weichmann, in particular, created doubts that persist to this day. Miller does an admirable job of sifting through the often conflicting source material and judicial obfuscation. Her author’s note discusses which sources she most trusts and why. The full truth of this intriguing historical mystery will never be known.
A bold, sympathetic, well-written account of a perplexing and complicated subject. (who’s who, sources, notes) (Nonfiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-18156-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Random House Studio
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Entertaining and eye-opening.
Brief, breezy profiles of women who committed crimes, from Delilah to Catherine the Great to gangster moll Virginia Hill, with comic-strip commentary from the authors.
With a conversational style, the mother-daughter team of Yolen and Stemple recap the crimes and misdeeds of 26 women and a few girls in this jaunty collective biography. After each two-to-four–page biographical sketch and accompanying illustration of the woman, a one-page comic strip shows the authors arguing about the woman’s guilt. The comic-strip Stemple typically comes down on the side of “guilty” or, in the case of Cleopatra marrying her brother, “icky.” Yolen tends toward moral relativism, suggesting the women acted according to the norms of their times or that they were driven to crime by circumstances such as poverty or lack of women’s rights. Thus, strip-teasing Salome, who may have been only 10, was manipulated by her mother into asking for John the Baptist’s head on a platter. Outlaw Belle Starr was “a good Southern girl raised during difficult times.” While the comic strips grow repetitive, the narrative portraits, arranged chronologically, offer intriguing facts—and in some cases, speculation—about an array of colorful figures, many of whom won’t be known to readers.
Entertaining and eye-opening. (bibliography, index) (Collective biography. 12-15)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-58089-185-1
Page Count: 172
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2013
Fiery and engaging, a powerful portrait of the liberating power of art.
An inspiring fictionalized verse biography of one of Cuba’s most influential writers.
Newbery Honor–winning Engle (The Surrender Tree, 2008) here imagines the youth of Cuban-born Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda (1814-73), a major 19th-century writer who was an abolitionist and feminist opposed to all forms of slavery, including arranged marriage. From Sab, her subject’s 1841 abolitionist novel, Engle loosely deduces her artistic development, not only including the two arranged marriages she refused in real life, but the budding writer’s struggles at home. There, “Tula” was subjected to the discriminatory views of her mother and grandfather, who sought to educate her only in the domestic arts since, according to Mamá, “Everyone knows that girls / who read and write too much / are unattractive.” Denied the education her brother received, Tula laments, “I’m just a girl who is expected / to live / without thoughts.” Engle’s clear, declarative verse animates the impassioned voice of Tula as well as other major figures in her life—her sympathetic brother, Manuel, the orphans she comes to love and entertain with grand plays meshing themes of autonomy and racial equality, and her family’s housekeeper, Caridad, a former slave who is eventually inspired by Tula’s wild tales of true emancipation to leave her confining situation.
Fiery and engaging, a powerful portrait of the liberating power of art. (historical note, translated excerpts from Avellaneda’s work, bibliography) (Historical fiction/verse. 12 & up)Pub Date: March 19, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-547-80743-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2013
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
