An attractive, solid entry on a disaster that continues to fascinate.
With the 100th anniversary of the Titanic tragedy coming up in April 2012, this engaging overview retells the powerful story and its aftermath.
McPherson opens effectively, with the crucial scene when the iceberg was spotted “right ahead,” noting that the lookout binoculars had been missing for days, and gives a brief recap of the sinking. The narrative then goes back through a brief history of steamships and the business reasons for building huge ones, followed by a more detailed account of the trip and its terrible end, the survivors’ arrival in New York and the quickly convened Senate hearings about the disaster. Final chapters report on finding and excavating the ship in recent years. The smooth writing uses many quotes from the time, deftly incorporates facts and conveys the terror and heartbreak of the sinking, in which more than 1,500 died, and the rescue of about 700. A graceful design with a wide format features many historical photographs and illustrations, and sidebars on a host of topics such as significant people and statistics. Although the source notes and index are inadequate, McPherson provides a timeline, glossary, bibliography and thoughtful list for finding more information.
An attractive, solid entry on a disaster that continues to fascinate. (Nonfiction. 11-15)Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7613-6756-7
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Twenty-First Century/Lerner
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2011
Necessary for every library, personal or otherwise.
As fresh and funny as ever, a classic compendium of physics in action gets a light but needed makeover.
Most of the “Things” here are still working the way they did back in 1988, 1998, and 2004, when the original and the revised editions dropped—but along with sporting new and spruced-up colors, some of the content, notably the section dubbed “The Digital Domain,” has been brought into the 21st century. Thus, the space shuttle and the VCR are no more, the workings of the telephone have been replaced by those of smartphones and telephone networks, and the jump jet has given way to the quadcopter and other types of drones. But the details that made the earlier editions delightful as well as edifying remain. In the illustrations, flights of tiny angels move the “first whoopee cushion” into place, discombobulated woolly mammoths get caught up in silly side business while helping to demonstrate scientific principles, and best of all, Macaulay’s brilliantly designed, engagingly informal diagrams and cutaways bring within the grasp of even casual viewers a greater understanding of the technological wonders of both past and present.
Necessary for every library, personal or otherwise. (index) (Reference. 11-15)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-544-82438-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2016
Tricked out with a ribbon, foil highlights on the jacket and portrait galleries at each chapter’s head by Ireland’s leading illustrator, this handsome package offers British readers an orgy of self-congratulatory historical highlights. These are borne along on a tide of invented epithets (“ ‘Foreigners!’ spat Boudicca”), fictive sound bites (“Down with the Committee of Safety!”) and homiletic observations (“By beating Napoléon the British showed how strong they were when they worked together”). Aside from occasional stumbles like the slave trade or the Irish potato famine, Britain’s history—from the Magna Carta to the dissolution of the biggest empire “there had ever been”—unfolds as a steady trot toward ever-broader religious toleration, voting rights and personal freedom. American audiences will likely be surprised to see Mary Queen of Scots characterized as “one of the most famous of all monarchs,” and the Revolutionary War get scarcely more play than the Charge of the Light Brigade. It makes a grand tale, though, even when strict accuracy sometimes takes a back seat to truthiness. Includes timelines, lists of monarchs and an index but no source lists. (Nonfiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5122-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2010
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