Tragic but at once both sketchy and too long.
Three small lobster boats unknowingly head into a massive storm in Georges Bank, off Cape Cod, in this nautical survival story that is a young readers’ adaptation of Tougias’ 2007 adult work of the same name.
Thanks to governmental delay in replacing a defective weather-forecasting buoy, the crews of the Fair Wind, Sea Fever, and Sea Star set out in November 1980, unaware that they were heading straight into 87-knot winds and waves as tall as 10-story buildings. Highlighted by the nearly 50-hour ordeal of Ernie Hazard, the sole survivor of the Fair Wind, on a leaky, wave-tossed life raft, the ensuing events were certainly harrowing. But despite the removal of some (but not enough) repetitive and extraneous detail from the original edition, Tougias’ narrative remains a slog, alternating prolonged, similar-sounding passages featuring tough men struggling to endure pounding seas with flights of overwritten melodrama and insufficient efforts to individualize the people involved. Aside from a paragraph explaining the specially designed Givens raft, the author likewise neglects to provide specific descriptions of either the working boats or the vessels involved in the eventual rescue, details that would have helped readers better visualize events. While the material is promising, the presentation unfortunately fails to make the conditions seem real or the participants come alive for audiences.
Tragic but at once both sketchy and too long. (list of characters and vessels, appendix, author’s note) (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2024
ISBN: 9780316556217
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Deftly written and informative; a call for vigilance and equality.
An examination of the history of Chinese American experiences.
Blackburn opens with a note to readers about growing up feeling invisible as a multicultural, biracial Chinese American. She notes the tremendous diversity of Chinese American history and writes that this book is a starting point for learning more. The evenly paced narrative starts with the earliest recorded arrival of the Chinese in America in 1834. A teenage girl, whose real name is unknown, arrived in New York Harbor with the Carnes brothers, merchants who imported Chinese goods and put her on display “like an animal in a circus.” The author then examines shifting laws, U.S. and global political and economic climates, and changing societal attitudes. The book introduces the highlighted people—including Yee Ah Tye, Wong Kim Ark, Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, and Vincent Chen—in relation to lawsuits or other transformative events; they also stand as examples for explaining concepts such as racial hierarchy and the model minority myth. Maps, photos, and documents are interspersed throughout. Chapters close with questions that encourage readers to think critically about systems of oppression, actively engage with the material, and draw connections to their own lives. Although the book covers a wide span of history, from the Gold Rush to the rise in anti-Asian hate during the Covid-19 pandemic, it thoroughly explains the various events. Blackburn doesn’t shy away from describing terrible setbacks, but she balances them with examples of solidarity and progress.
Deftly written and informative; a call for vigilance and equality. (resources, bibliography, image credits) (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780593567630
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
Hot on the heels of the well-received Leonardo da Vinci (2005) comes another agreeably chatty entry in the Giants of Science series. Here the pioneering physicist is revealed as undeniably brilliant, but also cantankerous, mean-spirited, paranoid and possibly depressive. Newton’s youth and annus mirabilis receive respectful treatment, the solitude enforced by family estrangement and then the plague seen as critical to the development of his thoughtful, methodical approach. His subsequent squabbles with the rest of the scientific community—he refrained from publishing one treatise until his rival was dead—further support the image of Newton as a scientific lone wolf. Krull’s colloquial treatment sketches Newton’s advances in clearly understandable terms without bogging the text down with detailed explanations. A final chapter on “His Impact” places him squarely in the pantheon of great thinkers, arguing that both his insistence on the scientific method and his theories of physics have informed all subsequent scientific thought. A bibliography, web site and index round out the volume; the lack of detail on the use of sources is regrettable in an otherwise solid offering for middle-grade students. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-05921-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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