by Michael G. Long ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 23, 2021
Readers will lose themselves in this work and emerge energized.
Rights are the evidence of hard-fought battles, and even the youngest among us have served on the battlefield.
This inspiring collection documents youths’ roles in social change movements, beginning with the 1903 March of the Mill Children, in which child laborers marched to change hazardous working conditions in factories, and ending in 2020 with youth protestors leading and organizing marches to protest the deaths of George Floyd and other victims of police brutality. Topically diverse, the collection highlights the struggle for school integration in the 1950s; protests against the Vietnam War; the racist school conditions faced by Chicanx students in East Los Angeles and the 1968 student walkout; and activism for stricter gun laws led by students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School after a deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018. Nuclear disarmament and climate change are also among the subjects covered. Young people are the focus of this inspiring overview that expresses themes of determination, change, and hope. Though some movements resulted in immediate change and others are part of yearslong efforts, readers will be inspired by the advocacy, leadership, and determination of the young change agents. The stories are accompanied by photos and primary source documents, breathing life into the subjects and showing a clear connecting thread between young people of different generations. A final section offers readers practical tips for engaging in effective social change.
Readers will lose themselves in this work and emerge energized. (endnotes, bibliography, photo credits) (Nonfiction. 11-16)Pub Date: March 23, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-64375-100-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
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PERSPECTIVES
by Joe Lee ; illustrated by Joe Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 5, 2021
An important story drowned in illegibility and exposition.
A biography, in comic form, of a survivor of Josef Mengele’s horrific experiments on twins.
Eva and Miriam Mozes are twins, born in 1934 to the only Jewish family in their Romanian village. Though Papa, fearing the antisemitism of interwar Romania, wants the family to flee to safety in Palestine, Mama argues against it. And so it is that they are still in Romania when their home is invaded by Hitler’s ally, Hungary. Following an all-too-familiar story, the Mozes family is sent first to the ghetto and then on to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Torn away from their family, the girls are brought to Mengele for his nightmarish twin experiments. The graphic form mercifully makes it difficult to provide much detail of the stomach-churning tortures Mengele inflicted on those he found lesser, though the blocky illustrations certainly feature starvation, death, and disease. After the girls are liberated by the Soviets, they begin the second part of their ordeal: living with their trauma. Two extremely dense chapters detail the next 74 years, eventually building to the journey Eva would take late in her life toward liberating herself by forgiving the Nazis. This overstuffed survivor tale owes less to Maus than it does to the For Beginners series of graphic nonfiction. Dense blocks of historical play-by-play, ungainly prose, and hard-to-read lettering make this a slog.
An important story drowned in illegibility and exposition. (Graphic biography. 13-15)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68435-178-7
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Red Lightning Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2021
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by Jimmy Settle & Don Rearden ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 30, 2018
A remarkable, inspiring story of steadfast courage and irrepressible determination.
In this young reader’s adaptation of his memoir, Settle (with Rearden: Never Quit: From Alaskan Wilderness Rescues to Afghanistan Firefights as an Elite Special Ops PJ, 2017) recounts the extraordinarily challenging process of becoming a pararescue jumper.
From humble beginnings as the son of a single mother who was a recovering addict, Settle enrolled at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he was diagnosed with a heart condition. Although corrected by surgery, it ended his dream of becoming a Navy Seal, and rather than completing his education and pursuing another career path, he chose to drop out. Returning home to Alaska and working in a shoe store, Settle was inspired by a friend to become a PJ, spending a year conditioning himself to successfully complete the Alaska team’s Physical Ability and Stamina Test, the most difficult in the nation. Settle recounts in vivid detail his experiences in basic training at “Superman School” and its punishing physical demands. Additional specialized training in parachuting, survival skills, and diving, not to mention EMT training and paramedic school, prepared him for deployment to Afghanistan. There, he recovered from being shot in the head, going on to save the lives of others, with the final few chapters offering intense scenes of battlefield trauma. The rapid-fire pace and nonstop action will maintain the interest of those who appreciate military stories.
A remarkable, inspiring story of steadfast courage and irrepressible determination. (Nonfiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-13961-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
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