Thrills and chills aplenty for fans of historical mysteries.
Creepy true tales of mysterious disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle, related by an ancient mariner.
“Are you sure your…impressionable young minds…want to hear such terrible tales?” enquires a strange tour guide to maritime museum visitors Neal and Divya. Following Neal’s eager response—which readers will certainly echo—the guide proceeds to regale the pair with the stories of how both the USS Cyclops, at the time the largest ship in the Navy, and an entire squad of torpedo bombers dubbed Flight 19 disappeared without trace off the coast of Florida in, respectively, 1918 and 1945. Along with adding brief references to similar tragedies, including, tellingly, to two of the Cyclops’ sister ships, the grizzled storyteller—usually depicted in Toh’s melodramatic scenes with craggy features underlit for maximum atmosphere—offers strange coincidences and suggestive circumstantial evidence related to the episodes, as well as various theories that have been proposed to account for them, ranging from aliens and magnetic anomalies to innate design flaws that created vulnerabilities to unusual winds and waves, or even sabotage. Anyone wishing to make their own judgments will find plenty of maps and source citations, plus historical background on the whole notion of the Bermuda Triangle. Most figures in the art are light-skinned; Divya is brown-skinned, while Neal and the guide are tan-skinned.
Thrills and chills aplenty for fans of historical mysteries. (bibliography) (Graphic nonfiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2026
ISBN: 9781250850249
Page Count: 112
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2026
Sentimental of plotline but informative and breathlessly paced.
The seventh (chronologically earliest) entry in the series pitches a young former slave into the middle of the Civil War’s pivotal battle.
Having saved a Union soldier named Henry Green by hurling a live skunk at his Confederate captors, young Thomas finds himself and his little sister Birdie adopted by Green’s unit. Three weeks, an ambush and a quick march later, Thomas unexpectedly finds himself in the thick of the fighting—possibly on Missionary Ridge itself, though the author doesn’t provide a specific location. Rather than go into details of the battle, Tarshis offers broad overviews of slavery and the war’s course (adding more about the latter in an afterword that includes the text of the Gettysburg Address). She folds these into quick pictures of military camp life and the violence-laced fog of war. Afterward, Thomas and Birdie are reunited with their older cousin Clem, who had been sold away, and make good on a promise to Green (who doesn’t survive) to settle with his Vermont parents and attend the school taught by his sweetheart.
Sentimental of plotline but informative and breathlessly paced. (Q&A, annotated reading list) (Historical fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-45936-5
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 25, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Even readers mad for all things horse won’t give this more than a quick graze before galloping off to richer pastures.
Bright colors and ornate furbelows flash in this survey of horsey fashion through the ages.
The vague topic and Patent’s accompanying commentary—being noticeably thin on specifics—come off as pretexts for an album of portraits for coltish horse lovers. Unfortunately, Brett doesn’t pick up the slack, as both horses and human figures posing in her flat paintings are drawn with unfinished, generic features, and the various blankets, braids, straps, plumes, fringes, saddles and pieces of armor on view are neither consistently identified nor displayed to best advantage. Grouped by function, the gallery of 14 examples opens with war horses (including armored steeds from an unspecified period of the Middle Ages and an Egyptian chariot confusingly paired to an Assyrian scenario set several centuries too early). It then goes on to portray horses trained to dance, race or compete in never-explained ways as draft teams. Following a final batch duded up for parades or, in ancient Scythia, ritual burial, a pair of labeled portraits, one of equine body parts and the other of standard tack, is shoehorned in.
Even readers mad for all things horse won’t give this more than a quick graze before galloping off to richer pastures. (index, bibliography, websites) (Nonfiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-58089-362-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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