An informative, invitingly readable examination of how charity goes wrong and how it might be fixed.
Davis takes a critical look at international aid practices.
The author has been a Peace Corps volunteer and has worked for decades in international development. Davis has seen many attempts by organizations to improve the lives of those in far-flung places with actions like bringing clean water to rural communities; unfortunately, most of these attempts fail. In the case of water projects, the author observes that instead of creating clean water sources resembling those found in developed regions like the U.S., aid organizations go with the “cheapest solution: a single, shared, community hand pump, a protected spring, or a shared tapstand” (referring to an outdoor water tap structure). Locals then walk to this source, “fill up an often-dirty container with water and carry it home,” which leads to a multitude of problems. Davis asks, “Do we really need to travel to another country to help, or do we just want to?” and goes on to critique such ineffective contributions as the largely negligible influence of celebrities (think Madonna planting a tree in Malawi) before suggesting possibilities for how one might go about actually helping the world. The author tackles tough subject matter in an approachable way. The book is at its best when Davis gets into specifics, as when she recalls a time when people donated teddy bears to countries that had been ravaged by a tsunami. While the donation was a kind impulse, it was “a hassle” (shipment costs for the bears would have been over $100,000). Chapters often conclude with sardonic asides, including “Curious Reflection and Provocation” (CRAP) questions and sections in which readers can brainstorm about “Useless or Unusable Household Items” to donate to a disaster area (“party supplies, yoga mats, Viagra”). While this material may not be sidesplitting, it does help to lighten the mood. Ultimately, the book provides invaluable insights from someone with extensive knowledge of the subject who’s not afraid to take its practitioners to task.
An informative, invitingly readable examination of how charity goes wrong and how it might be fixed.Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2026
ISBN: 9781971718293
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Ripples Media
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.
A principled athlete strives for social justice.
Kaepernick forthrightly details the activism that earned him global renown but cost him his NFL career. In 2016, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback “was filled with disgust” after police shootings of fellow Black men in several American cities. Before a preseason game, he made a spontaneous decision: “It hit me in that moment that I should find a seat” during the national anthem. He did the same at two more games before reporters noticed. Kaepernick will forever be associated with “taking a knee” during the anthem, but he credits Eric Reid—a teammate who agreed with Kaepernick’s message—for suggesting that they kneel together during subsequent anthems. The protest changed everything for Kaepernick. President Trump vilified him. Kaepernick and his wife received death threats. And though he’d taken the 49ers to a Super Bowl, no teams would sign him. He will likely make news for his take on Jay-Z, whose lucrative partnership with the NFL was criticized as an attempt to launder the league’s reputation. Visiting Africa, where Kaepernick learns about “African leaders who willingly sold their own people to the enslavers,” he “couldn’t help but to think about Jay-Z and the NFL.” In opening chapters, Kaepernick recalls suffering traumatic racial abuse as a child. Being in “white spaces”—he was adopted by white parents—placed him “under a microscope every minute of every day.” He isn’t always nuanced, depicting some people he disagrees with as cartoonishly clueless. But his writing about how college and pro teams “lied” to him about injuries underlines his “feeling of being a disposable commodity.” A decade has passed since Kaepernick played in the NFL, but he stays fit in case “a team needing a QB” calls.
A football star’s bracing account of his battle for racial equality—and how powerful forces arrayed against him.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781538777879
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Legacy Lit/Hachette
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
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