Rare (and subpar) is the library that doesn’t already offer several accounts of Lady Liberty’s creation, but this fictionalized import merits consideration for its unusual angle. In large, sequential panels, Hochain traces major stages of the statue’s construction, transportation, and reassembly through the eyes of four young workers: two French, two American. Drawn with a fine but not obsessive attention to detail (think Arthur Geisert, rather than Martin Handford), his pulled-back shop, shipboard, and street scenes deliver clear views of how Liberty’s original models were scaled up, molded, riveted, and braced—simultaneously imparting a real sense of the project’s massive scale, and also of dress and architecture in Paris and New York. Too many rough edges remain, from a misspelling of Bartholdi’s name and some anachronistic language (“No way!” “skyscrapers” “Geronimo-o-o-o-o-o-o!” to confusing panel placement) to give this an unreserved thumbs-up, but readers already conversant with the twin histories of the statue and its pedestal might be intrigued by the personal points of view. (details of construction) (Fictionalized nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: June 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-7922-6765-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2004
Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-44887-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
A clear, understandable account of a young Jewish boy's terrible experiences during the World War II. In 1944, when Eliezer Wiesel was 15, his town of Sighet (then part of Hungary) was invaded by the German army, who forced all the Jews to live in ghettos. From there, the Wiesel family were sent to concentration camps where, with the exception of Elie, they all were killed. Without fanfare but with dignified emphasis, author Pariser describes the cruelties and horrors of Wiesel's life as an inmate, as well as his subsequent liberation by Allied forces and his future vocation as a journalist, author, speaker, and political activist. Photographs from the WW II period establish a mood of somber witness. With its clear, narrative style, useful bibliography, chronology, and index, this is an excellent introduction to what is undeniably one of the darkest periods in modern history. (Nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: Aug. 15, 1994
ISBN: 1-56294-419-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Millbrook
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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