An epic feat from an era in which radio was still newfangled and many people “had never seen an airplane, except in pictures.”
In fact, the U.S. Army aviators chosen for this 1924 expedition left radios behind—along with life preservers and parachutes—to lighten the load on their planes (they did take a pair of stuffed toy monkeys). Fortunately, as Grove, a Smithsonian educator, makes clear in a meticulous account based on journals and other documentary evidence, not only were diplomatic and other preparations made for each planned stop on the carefully mapped course, but the Navy provided near-continual monitoring. Not that the flight went smoothly: One of the four planes crashed into an Alaska mountain, and another sank in the North Atlantic. Along with awful weather (“The Aleutians have but two kinds of weather it seems, bad and worse,” wrote one pilot) and multiple forced landings, so rickety were the aircraft in general that wear and tear required multiple full engine replacements along the way. The flight took 150 days, and the aviators lost a bet with the Prince of Wales that he could beat them across the Atlantic by boat. Of six nations competing to be first to circle the globe, only the U.S. team was able to finish. It’s a grand tale, set handsomely here amid sheaves of maps, short journal passages and contemporary photos.
A high spot in aviation history, particularly noteworthy for the rugged perseverance of those who achieved it. (endnotes, summary charts, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 10-13)Pub Date: April 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4197-1482-5
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
Categories: CHILDREN'S HISTORY | CHILDREN'S TRANSPORTATION
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BOOK REVIEW
Using a provided packet of helpful tools, readers can search for clues along with a historical spy in the house of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy.
Fans of ciphers and hidden clues will find both in abundance, beginning on the copyright page and continuing to a final, sealed-off section of explanations and solutions. Fictionalized but spun around actual figures and events, the tale centers on Bowser, a free African-American who worked undercover as a maid in Davis’ house and passed information to a ring of white Richmond spies. Here she looks for the key phrase that will unlock a Vigenère cipher—an alphabetic substitution code—while struggling to hide her intelligence and ability to read. As an extra challenge, she leaves the diary in which she records some of her experiences concealed for readers to discover, using allusive and sometimes-misleading clues that are hidden in Cliff’s monochrome illustrations and in cryptic marginal notations. A Caesar cipher wheel, a sheet of red acetate, and several other items in a front pocket supply an espionage starter kit that readers can use along the way; it is supplemented by quick introductions in the narrative to ciphers and codes, including Morse dashes and dots and the language of flowers.
Plenty of work for sharp eyes and active intellects in this history-based series opener. (answers, historical notes, biographies, bibliography) (Historical fiction. 10-12)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7611-8739-4
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Workman
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
Categories: CHILDREN'S HISTORY
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Sprouting bodies and grins, the states introduce themselves alphabetically in this Basher History gallery.
Following the series’ cast-in-stone design, each entry poses in a cartoon portrait with small emblems representing prominent physical features, industry, number of native U.S. presidents and other select distinctions. On opposite pages, a hearty self-description dominates: “Aloha! Come and hang ten with me, dude. I’m a bunch of chilled-out islands in the Pacific, but I have a fiery heart.” This is sandwiched between bulleted lists of superficial facts, from state bird, flower and nickname to (for Arkansas) “Known for diverse landscape, extreme weather, and Walmart.” U.S. territories bring up the rear, followed by a table of official state mottos and, glued to the rear cover, a foldout map. Along with out-and-out errors (a mistranslation of “e pluribus unum”) and unqualified claims (Boston built the first subway), Green offers confusing or opaque views on the origins of “Hawkeye,” “Sooners,” some state names and which of two “Mississippi Deltas” was the birthplace of the blues. Furthermore, a reference to “sacred hunting grounds” in West Virginia and Kentucky’s claim that “It wasn’t until pioneer Daniel Boone breached the Cumberland Gap…that my verdant pastures were colonized” are, at best, ingenuous.
Chatty, formulaic, superficial—and dispensable, as the content is neither reliable nor systematic. . (index, glossary) (Nonfiction. 10-12)Pub Date: July 22, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-7534-7138-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Kingfisher
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
Categories: CHILDREN'S HISTORY
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