The author’s strenuous efforts to pump up the excitement aren’t particularly successful, but there’s enough intrinsic drama to carry readers along in this account of the discovery and early exploration of Missouri’s Riverbluff Cave, the oldest found so far in this country with fossil remains. Found by a road-building crew in 2001, the cave has yielded not only spectacular mineral formations, but tracks and claw marks in soft clay that have been dated to more than 50,000 years in the past, and fossils more than ten times older. Unfortunately, there is no map to go with Harrison’s piecemeal description of scientists’ ventures into the cave; he only refers obliquely to how various methods of dating are done; and the accompanying illustrations mix stiffly artificial painted reconstructions with amateurish color photos that aren’t always captioned and seldom allow viewers to judge the size of what they’re seeing. Over-designed, under-detailed and without even a mention of the cave’s extensive official website, this may excite curiosity about the Riverbluff finds, but isn’t likely to satisfy it. (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: June 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-8118-5006-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2007
trike” in New York City and the fate of the sharecroppers in the southern cotton industry, the garment and coal mining industries loom as the real villains in child labor issues. Bartoletti provides numerous examples of how debilitating poverty drove entire families to work in utter squalor and suffer cruel treatment at the hands of profit-driven conglomerates. Personal stories illuminate the wretched conditions under which many of these children labored, with a focus on the instances when a child mobilized fellow workers to demand their rights. The grit and determination of these children who, in the face of police abuse, bureaucratic negligence, and governmental (even presidential) indifference, banded together for a common cause, and the startling black-and-white photographs, ensure that readers will be alternately awed and appalled by this stunning account of child labor in the US. (bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-88892-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
Setting story aside, the primary duty of Bluebonnet, an armadillo, is to aid and abet the public relations efforts of the Texas tourism industry. The only issue that could be construed as a character-driven conflict in this title is that Bluebonnet has missed Marshall’s Fire Ant Festival. Her real purpose, however, is to visit the Marshall train depot. Even when a fence bars her from entering that duly-described edifice, the fetching armadillo’s problem melts away under the benign gaze of T.P., a cat whose name stands for the Texas & Pacific. The two become ever-smilin’ buddies as T.P. tells Bluebonnet all manner of things of interest mostly to Texans and tourists. Texas schoolchildren helped mount a campaign to save the depot from demolition, readers learn, although they don’t learn why. Vincent’s illustrations offer a sense of the depot’s early-1900s bustle, however, and his critters are cute as can be. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 1-56554-311-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Pelican
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
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