“War is hell,” General William T. Sherman is purported to have said, having been through more than one hellish battle himself. But Lewin chooses not to show the hell of war; rather, this mischaracterization, albeit a colorfully illustrated one, tells of youngish Stephen’s camping out with his dad and others as they reenact a battle in the US Civil War. Unfortunately, even this never manages to spark much life. The subtitle is misleading, since this doesn’t deal with real participants in that bloody event, but is about reenactors—those who derive pleasure in marching, wearing uniforms (clean), and carrying weapons in the present to reenact the past, in particular the Civil War. Lewin’s (watercolor or tempera) art is photographically semi-realistic and colorful, thanks in large part to the uniforms of the reenacting Union troops. Nowhere, though, can be found the dirt, blood, and horror of war. Those playing Union soldiers are costumed in full regalia; the Confederates, alas, are shown as country boys not in Confederate gray but in rag-tag homespun butternut. (The reason is never offered.) Unreal soldiers cannot arouse sympathy in an unreal cause, and young readers will therefore learn nothing—except that it’s fun to play war. A misguided effort that lacks animation in story and art and never finds a voice. (author’s note) (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: May 31, 2001
ISBN: 0-688-16024-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales.
The Mouse and the Motorcycle (1965) upgrades to The Mice and the Rolls-Royce.
In Windsor Castle there sits a “dollhouse like no other,” replete with working plumbing, electricity, and even a full library of real, tiny books. Called Queen Mary’s Dollhouse, it also plays host to the Whiskers family, a clan of mice that has maintained the house for generations. Henry Whiskers and his cousin Jeremy get up to the usual high jinks young mice get up to, but when Henry’s little sister Isabel goes missing at the same time that the humans decide to clean the house up, the usually bookish big brother goes on the adventure of his life. Now Henry is driving cars, avoiding cats, escaping rats, and all before the upcoming mouse Masquerade. Like an extended version of Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904), Priebe keeps this short chapter book constantly moving, with Duncan’s peppy art a cute capper. Oddly, the dollhouse itself plays only the smallest of roles in this story, and no factual information on the real Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House is included at the tale’s end (an opportunity lost).
Innocuous adventuring on the smallest of scales. (Fantasy. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6575-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2016
Rappaport makes this long struggle palpable and relevant, while Faulkner adds a winning mix of gravitas and high spirits.
Rappaport examines the salient successes and raw setbacks along the 144-year-long road between the nation’s birth and women’s suffrage.
This lively yet forthright narrative pivots on a reality that should startle modern kids: women’s right to vote was only achieved in 1920, 72 years after Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. Indeed, time’s passage figures as a textual motif, connecting across decades such determined women as Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy Stone. They spoke tirelessly, marched, organized, and got arrested. Rappaport includes events such as 1913’s Women’s Suffrage Parade in Washington, D.C., but doesn’t shy from divisive periods like the Civil War. Faulkner’s meticulously researched gouache-and-ink illustrations often infuse scenes with humor by playing with size and perspective. As Stanton and Lucretia Mott sail into London in 1840 for the World Anti-Slavery Conference, Faulkner depicts the two women as giants on the ship’s upper deck. On the opposite page, as they learn they’ll be barred as delegates, they’re painted in miniature, dwarfed yet unflappable beneath a gallery full of disapproving men. A final double-page spread mingles such modern stars as Shirley Chisholm and Sonia Sotomayor amid the historical leaders.
Rappaport makes this long struggle palpable and relevant, while Faulkner adds a winning mix of gravitas and high spirits. (biographical thumbnails, chronology, sources, websites, further reading, author’s note) (Picture book/biography. 6-8)Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-7868-5142-3
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
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