In this work subtitled ``What It Was Like When the Great Liner Sank,'' the powerful, detailed, and realistic paintings by Marschall will enthrall readers and draw them into the mystery of the famous ocean liner's fate. In this I Was There book, Tanaka (The Disaster of the Hindenburg, 1993, not reviewed, etc.) tells the story from the point of view of two young men aboard the Titanic: Jack Thayer, a wealthy 17-year-old, and Harold Bride, a junior wireless operator. The details are many and interesting: the historic photos; the accurate drawing of a cross-section of the ship; an explanation of Morse code; a discussion of the number of lifeboats aboard; a diagram of who died and who was saved (the greatest number of those who drowned were third-class passengers and crew members); the number of dogs that survived (2). The book will more than satisfy those for whom this voyage is an apparently unlimited source of fascination. (Nonfiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-7868-0283-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
Through Florrie’s eyes readers experience the despair and hopelessness of talented actors who were forced to leave the stage to find other work when the Lafayette Theatre closed its doors; the golden days of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s have disappeared into the Great Depression of the 1930s, and Florrie’s father, once an actor, toils at the Allnight Bakery. Florrie’s greatest dream is for her father to be able to leave his job and return to the stage, and so she makes a wish on a tree that grows next to the Lafayette Theatre; it has become a symbol of endurance for black actors, a tree of hope. A director, Mr. Welles, arrives when President Roosevelt orders that the doors of the theatre be opened; there is to be a staging of Macbeth, and Florrie’s father gets a part. An author’s note attests to the veracity of events in the story, when Orson Welles directed African-Americans in roles from which they were once excluded. Cooper’s lavish oil-wash, full-page paintings pay mute tribute to the loss of luster and its regeneration in Harlem, in scenes in which the footlights cast a glow, and in which the faces tell a story that hardly needs words. (bibliography) (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-399-23300-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1999
From Dodds (The Shape of Things, 1994, not reviewed, etc.), a rhyming, reckless text that makes a math process pleasurably solvable; Mitchell’s illustrative debut features a smashing cast of 1930s characters and a playfulness that will keep readers guessing. The premise is a Great Race: at the sound of the gun, 80 bicycle racers take off at top speed. The path diverges at the top of a cliff, and half the racers hurtle forever downward and right out of the race and the book. The remaining 40 racers determinedly continue in boats, their curls, spyglasses, eye patches, matronly upswept hairdos, and Clara Bow—lips intact. Whirlpools erupt to divide them again and wreck their ships, so it’s time to grab the next horse and ride on. The race continues, despite abrupt changes in modes of transportation and in the number of racers that dwindle by disastrous divisions, until a single winner glides over the finish line in a single-prop plane. The pace is so breathless and engaging that the book’s didactic origins all but disappear; few readers will notice that they’ve just finished a math problem, and most will want to go over all the action again. (Picture book. 5-10)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-7636-0442-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1999
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