Jimmy Carter’s life story presented specifically for the reader who has a report to write for school. The print story is a straightforward, complete one for the young reader and researcher. However, the reader can find much more information at the My Reports Web site. This is what the publisher hopes the young researcher will do: read the book and then connect to the links provided from the Web. With frequent color photographs and brief, easy-to-understand chapters and sentences, the author allows the young reader to get to know the public life of the former president. He briefly highlights the important events of Carter’s presidency: the backlash from the Nixon pardon, daughter Amy’s struggles with the spotlight, Roslyn’s speech to Congress, the energy crisis, the difficult and demanding peace process in the Middle East, the capture of the American hostages in Iran, and their eventual release. He paints an admirable picture of Carter: hard-working and caring, someone who lives from his heart. He spares the young reader the infamous Playboy “lust in my heart” episode but tells much about Carter as an involved ex-president who is active with peace and justice causes. There is little new information here, just the bare facts that can be easily found in any resource about the presidents. Certain elementary-school assignments have been around forever and the presidential report is one of them. This series and the accompanying easy-to-navigate Web site will make this predictable assignment less daunting and a little more interesting for the writer. (index, chapter notes, annotated Web addresses, bibliography.) (Nonfiction. 7-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-7660-5051-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Enslow
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2002
paper 0-395-97499-2 Introducing this overview of everyday life in a Plains Indian village circa 1868 is a map locating tribal lands of the Plains Indians. Contemporary Native Americans pose as models depicting the full regalia of the Cheyenne, Lakota Sioux, Crow, and Blackfeet. In re-enactment style, reminiscent of a visit to a living history village, each “actor” then personifies a member in the family of Real Bird, a northern Cheyenne warrior from the plains of southeastern Montana. A staged full-color photograph of family members engaged in role-specific work, leisure, food preparation, warfare, trade, and ritual is at the center of each spread, surrounded by additional text and captions that expand each topic. Sees the Berries Woman and Pretty Plume Woman demonstrate the construction of a tipi in a frame-by-frame, five-step procedure; warriors and chiefs hold council in a pre-battle ceremony; Timber Leader shows off a bearskin that gives him healing powers. Artifacts such as beadwork, weapons, tools, toys, and medicine objects lend authenticity to this informative survey and history of the culture. (chronology, glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Aug. 23, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-94542-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1999
A busy page design—artily superimposed text and photos, tinted portraits, and break-out boxes—and occasionally infelicitous writing (“Trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie became . . . bandleader of the quintet at the Onyx Club, from which bebop got its name”) give this quick history of jazz a slapdash air, but Lee delves relatively deeply into the music’s direct and indirect African roots, then goes beyond the usual tedious tally of names to present a coherent picture of specific influences and innovations associated with the biggest names in jazz. A highly selective discography will give readers who want to become listeners a jump start; those seeking more background will want to follow this up with James Lincoln Collier’s Jazz (1997). (glossary, further reading, index) (Nonfiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8239-1852-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1999
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