Dud pix but a high-flying commemoration nonetheless.
A vivid tribute to the scientific insights, technological ingenuity, and sheer brass that put men on the moon in 1969 and brought them back alive.
Brouwer pitches his tale as a triumph over “life-or-death challenges that no humans had faced before” and writes in second person to crank up its immediacy. He puts readers right into the cramped spacecraft with Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins as he chronicles the heady mix of tricky bits and narrowly averted crises that were Apollo 11: “Yes, you are almost out of fuel. You know that the moon has nearly zero atmosphere. You can’t glide. The Eagle is dropping like a piano.” In between dramatic episodes he also trots in a large cast of early and contemporary scientists—from Tycho Brahe (“a true geek”) and Alessandro Volta to Emmy Noether and Katherine Johnson—whose work made the mission possible. And, along with the customary nods to space conditions (“Eight days, three men, one small space, no showers and lots of body gas”) and technological advances like Velcro, he covers several less-common sidelights, such as how the Apollo astronauts got around the problem of affordable life insurance and the canard that the moon landing was a hoax. Generous as it is, the array of small, often murky black-and-white photos and technical drawings doesn’t measure up to the narrative’s vim, but hefty sets of print, web, and video resources at the end will help bring the era and the achievement to life.
Dud pix but a high-flying commemoration nonetheless. (index) (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0036-3
Page Count: 132
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
Deftly written and informative; a call for vigilance and equality.
An examination of the history of Chinese American experiences.
Blackburn opens with a note to readers about growing up feeling invisible as a multicultural, biracial Chinese American. She notes the tremendous diversity of Chinese American history and writes that this book is a starting point for learning more. The evenly paced narrative starts with the earliest recorded arrival of the Chinese in America in 1834. A teenage girl, whose real name is unknown, arrived in New York Harbor with the Carnes brothers, merchants who imported Chinese goods and put her on display “like an animal in a circus.” The author then examines shifting laws, U.S. and global political and economic climates, and changing societal attitudes. The book introduces the highlighted people—including Yee Ah Tye, Wong Kim Ark, Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, and Vincent Chen—in relation to lawsuits or other transformative events; they also stand as examples for explaining concepts such as racial hierarchy and the model minority myth. Maps, photos, and documents are interspersed throughout. Chapters close with questions that encourage readers to think critically about systems of oppression, actively engage with the material, and draw connections to their own lives. Although the book covers a wide span of history, from the Gold Rush to the rise in anti-Asian hate during the Covid-19 pandemic, it thoroughly explains the various events. Blackburn doesn’t shy away from describing terrible setbacks, but she balances them with examples of solidarity and progress.
Deftly written and informative; a call for vigilance and equality. (resources, bibliography, image credits) (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780593567630
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
Hot on the heels of the well-received Leonardo da Vinci (2005) comes another agreeably chatty entry in the Giants of Science series. Here the pioneering physicist is revealed as undeniably brilliant, but also cantankerous, mean-spirited, paranoid and possibly depressive. Newton’s youth and annus mirabilis receive respectful treatment, the solitude enforced by family estrangement and then the plague seen as critical to the development of his thoughtful, methodical approach. His subsequent squabbles with the rest of the scientific community—he refrained from publishing one treatise until his rival was dead—further support the image of Newton as a scientific lone wolf. Krull’s colloquial treatment sketches Newton’s advances in clearly understandable terms without bogging the text down with detailed explanations. A final chapter on “His Impact” places him squarely in the pantheon of great thinkers, arguing that both his insistence on the scientific method and his theories of physics have informed all subsequent scientific thought. A bibliography, web site and index round out the volume; the lack of detail on the use of sources is regrettable in an otherwise solid offering for middle-grade students. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-05921-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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