Another immigrant gets the job done.
A tribute to the New York City subway’s first official “leak detective.”
Gifted with a literal nose for trouble, James Kelly arrived in New York from Ireland “with nothing but a suitcase and a keen sense of smell”—and leveraged the latter into a long career over the first half of the 20th century sniffing out dangerous gas, water, steam, and other leaks in the subway system and elsewhere. Along the way he solved mysteries (“the most nauseating, nose-scrunching stench ever to hit the subway,” detected at the 42nd Street station, turned out to be caused by a buried deposit of circus-elephant dung beneath the site of the old Hippodrome) and averted several potential disasters. Anderson casts him in a heroic mold, as he had not only a special ability, but the inner motivation to use it in service to public safety: “With such an honor came great responsibility.” (Shades of Spider-Man.) Depicted with a confident smile and a mop of bright orange hair, Kelly shines as he goes after suggestive twists and curls of miasmic yellowish green in the illustrations’ succession of antique-looking street scenes and cross-sectional views of underground pipes and tunnels. Harney tucks a dark-skinned couple into a line of subway riders, but otherwise human figures present White throughout. In a set of endnotes the author adds a portrait photo, describes some of the specialized gear that Kelly invented, and closes with leads to more information about New York’s underground. (This book was reviewed digitally with 11-by-18-inch double-page spreads viewed at 77 % of actual size.)
Another immigrant gets the job done. (source notes, bibliography.) (Picture book/biography. 7-9)Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68437-399-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s got a few quirky bits, but it’s lackluster overall.
Pop-up dinosaurs, both fossilized and fully fleshed out, join Mesozoic contemporaries in a series of museum displays.
The single-topic spreads are up-to-date but designed to evoke the dusty atmosphere of old-style dinosaur halls (emphasizing this conceit, some are even labeled “Rooms”). They combine cramped blocks of information in smallish type with images of beasts and bones done in a style that resembles the faded naturalism of early-20th-century museum murals—or, in the “Fossil Room,” a desktop covered in paleontological notes with paper clips and coffee stains. Occasional inset spinners and attached booklets supply additional dino details. A tab-activated flipbook attempts to demonstrate tectonic drift, but readers have to go fairly slowly to assimilate it all, which blunts the effect. Amid pale silhouettes representing modern museum visitors, the prehistoric creatures, nearly all of which are small and drably colored, rear up individually or parade along in sedate, motley groups until a closing display and mention of genetic engineering promise a possible future with pet velociraptors.
It’s got a few quirky bits, but it’s lackluster overall. (Informational pop-up picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7636-9687-0
Page Count: 14
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Sept. 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An engaging and informative true story of perseverance and discovery.
Fern and Kulikov, collaborators on the picture-book biographies Barnum’s Bones (2012) and W is for Webster (2015), bring the self-taught archaeologist who discovered King Tut’s tomb to life.
Howard Carter’s obsession with mummies began when he was a boy in England and visited a nearby mansion filled with ancient Egyptian artifacts. Carter dreamed of discovering a mummy himself. At 17, he took a job copying ancient art for the Egypt Exploration Fund. Awed by the art and architecture he sketched and copied, Carter was eager to make discoveries of his own. He taught himself the methodologies of archaeology, Arabic, geology, Egyptian history, and how to read hieroglyphics. As an antiquities inspector for the Egyptian government, Carter excavated several tombs only to find they had been looted. Undaunted, Carter devised a plan to excavate every unsearched inch in the Valley of the Kings. His dogged persistence paid off in 1922 when he discovered the treasure-filled tomb of Tutankhamun. Quoting from Carter’s own account, Fern infuses her story with excitement. She describes Carter as having a “funky personality” with a “stubborn attitude and worse table manners”; Kulikov’s exaggerated illustrations energetically capture Carter’s ambition and fascination with his subject.
An engaging and informative true story of perseverance and discovery. (author’s note, bibliography) (Picture book/biography. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-374-30305-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
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