The melodrama is laid on with a trowel, but it’s nevertheless a thoroughly documented, visually rich presentation of the...
Aiming for a young audience, the popular political pundit pares down his Killing Kennedy (2012) considerably (and leaves out the sexual exploits) while shoveling in sheaves of documentary photographs.
O’Reilly writes in staccato bursts of present-tense prose chopped into short chapters and featuring quick shifts in point of view. This effectively cranks up the suspense despite tinges of purple (“The man with fewer than three years to live places his left hand on the Bible”) and the foreordained outcome. The book chronicles John F. Kennedy’s course from PT-109 through a challenging presidency and positively harps on Lee Harvey Oswald’s determined but doomed quest to become a “great man.” Though he ends with a personal anecdote that hints at the possibility of a conspiracy, the author’s closely detailed account of the assassination itself and its aftermath follows the Warren Commission’s version of events. News photos or snapshots on nearly every page provide views of the Kennedy and Oswald families over time, as well as important figures, places and major world events. Aside from a perfunctory list of “Fun Facts About the Early 1960s” that seems misplaced considering the somber topic, the backmatter is both extensive and helpful for further study of Kennedy’s career and accomplishments.
The melodrama is laid on with a trowel, but it’s nevertheless a thoroughly documented, visually rich presentation of the official version. (timeline, quotes, capsule bios, sites, books, films, source notes, index) (Nonfiction. 11-13)Pub Date: June 11, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9802-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: April 9, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Logically pointing out that the American cowboy archetype didn’t spring up from nowhere, Sandler, author of Cowboys (1994) and other volumes in the superficial, if luxuriously illustrated, “Library of Congress Book” series, looks back over 400 years of cattle tending in North America. His coverage ranges from the livestock carried on Columbus’s second voyage to today’s herding-by-helicopter operations. Here, too, the generous array of dramatic early prints, paintings, and photos are more likely to capture readers’ imaginations than the generality-ridden text. But among his vague comments about the characters, values, and culture passed by Mexican vaqueros to later arrivals from the Eastern US, Sadler intersperses nods to the gauchos, llaneros, and other South American “cowmen,” plus the paniolos of Hawaii, and the renowned African-American cowboys. He also decries the role film and popular literature have played in suppressing the vaqueros’ place in the history of the American West. He tackles an uncommon topic, and will broaden the historical perspective of many young cowboy fans, but his glance at modern vaqueros seems to stop at this country’s borders. Young readers will get a far more detailed, vivid picture of vaquero life and work from the cowboy classics in his annotated bibliography. (Notes, glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2001
ISBN: 0-8050-6019-7
Page Count: 116
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2000
The life of Manjiro Nakahama, also known as John Mung, makes an amazing story: shipwrecked as a young fisherman for months on a remote island, rescued by an American whaler, he became the first Japanese resident of the US. Then, after further adventures at sea and in the California gold fields, he returned to Japan where his first-hand knowledge of America and its people earned him a central role in the modernization of his country after its centuries of peaceful isolation had ended. Expanding a passage from her Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun (1985, Newbery Honor), Blumberg not only delivers an absorbing tale of severe hardships and startling accomplishments, but also takes side excursions to give readers vivid pictures of life in mid-19th-century Japan, aboard a whaler, and amidst the California Gold Rush. The illustrations, a generous mix of contemporary photos and prints with Manjiro’s own simple, expressive drawings interspersed, are at least as revealing. Seeing a photo of Commodore Perry side by side with a Japanese artist’s painted portrait, or strange renditions of a New England town and a steam train, based solely on Manjiro’s verbal descriptions, not only captures the unique flavor of Japanese art, but points up just how high were the self-imposed barriers that separated Japan from the rest of the world. Once again, Blumberg shows her ability to combine high adventure with vivid historical detail to open a window onto the past. (source note) (Biography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2001
ISBN: 0-688-17484-1
Page Count: 80
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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