A suspenseful, well-researched story that captures the drama of Earhart’s life and last flight.
Fasten your seat belt and prepare to join Amelia Earhart as she attempts to set one last record—flying around the world at the equator.
This book’s preflight briefing includes an introduction to aviation history, Earhart’s course in the male-dominated skies, and her reasons for a globe-circling flight at the equator. Dramatic black-and-white comic illustrations and journal-style entries based on Earhart’s notes and letters, as well as periodic pagelong sections in prose about Earhart’s crew, plane, and radio direction finder, transform her last flight into a compelling and tense drama. Too many fundraising schemes, too little preparation, and the extra weight of promotional items hint at doom. During the journey, delays, loss of crew members, and difficulty spotting small jungle runways foreshadow disaster ahead. The leg to Howland, a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific, was the hardest part of the journey. Almost hourly log entries track communications from USCGC Itasca waiting near Howland as it struggles, and fails, to make contact with Earhart. Numerous panels focus on the intense media coverage following Earhart’s disappearance and reactions from women from various walks of life, but this story ends on a positive note with excerpts from Earhart’s last letter from the day she set out for Howland about the joy of flying through stormy weather and knowing that if she can “tilt my plane up,” she will “emerge into sunlight.”
A suspenseful, well-researched story that captures the drama of Earhart’s life and last flight. (timeline, bibliography) (Graphic nonfiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 16, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-22466-3
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This sophisticated contender in the graphic nonfiction market opens with “The Story So Far,” setting the stage for the events that led to the bloody Civil War battle at Gettysburg. Clearly defined art and sharply delineated panels portray all of the horrors of battle: the numerous casualties, both human and animal, the impromptu and severely unhygienic operating rooms and the impact that this event had on those who lived there. A vast cast of characters—an even and improbable dozen—introduced early on does little to help readers follow the action. Rather, this feature obfuscates things, as many of the men have similar looks, varying only slightly in their coiffed hair or a hat and a mustache. It shines in its closing pages, compressing Edward Everett’s two-hour speech into a few panels and giving Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address a good 20 pages to make itself felt. Undoubtedly smarter and more astute than many of its graphic-nonfiction counterparts, this book should speak to those seeking a visual account. (map, author’s notes; footnotes, bibliography, not seen) (Graphic nonfiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-06-156176-4
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Bowen Press/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
A striking glimpse into Chinese girlhood during the 1970s and ’80s.
Beginning with a breathtaking dream of riding a golden crane over the city of Wuhan, China, Liu Na, recounts her subsequent waking only to discover that Chairman Mao has passed away. The 3-year-old finds this difficult to process and understand, although she is soon caught up in the somber mood of the event. From there, her life unfolds in short sketches. With this intimate look at her childhood memories, Liu skillfully weaves factual tidbits into the rich tapestry of her life. In the section titled “The Four Pests,” she explains about the four pests that plague China—the rat, the fly, the mosquito and the cockroach (with an additional explanation of how the sparrow once made this list, and why it is no longer on it)—and her stomach-turning school assignment to catch rats and deliver the severed tails to her teacher. In “Happy New Year! The Story of Nian the Monster,” she explains the origins of Chinese New Year, her favorite holiday, and her own vivid, visceral reflections of it: the sights, sounds and smells. Extraordinary and visually haunting, there will be easy comparisons to Allen Say’s Drawing from Memory (2011); think of this as the female counterpart to that work.
Beautifully drawn and quietly evocative. (glossary, timeline, author biography, translations of Chinese characters, maps) (Graphic memoir. 9-12)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7613-8115-0
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Graphic Universe
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
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