Paying handsome tribute to the doughty crew that brought the rule of law to some of the wildest parts of the Wild West, Spradlin profiles such prominent Rangers as William A.A. “Big Foot” Wallace and Captain Leander McNelly. He also highlights achievements from the battle of the Alamo to the capture of John Wesley Hardin and the ambush of Bonnie and Clyde. A sense of the wide-open spaces they patrolled comes through clearly in Munro’s outdoorsy scenes. Mustachioed and well-armed Rangers face Comanche raiders, Mexican soldiers, bands of desperados and oil boomtown rowdies in a variety of settings with the same air of calm competence. Though the modern Rangers get a nod at the end, the focus here is really on their first century of existence (they were founded in 1823)—still, they seldom get their due in titles for younger readers, and this makes the best short introduction since Stephen Hardin’s Texas Rangers (1991). (Picture book/nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-8027-8096-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2008
Strong rhythms and occasional full or partial rhymes give this account of P.T. Barnum’s 1884 elephant parade across the newly opened Brooklyn Bridge an incantatory tone. Catching a whiff of public concern about the new bridge’s sturdiness, Barnum seizes the moment: “’I will stage an event / that will calm every fear, erase every worry, / about that remarkable bridge. / My display will amuse, inform / and astound some. / Or else my name isn’t Barnum!’” Using a rich palette of glowing golds and browns, Roca imbues the pachyderms with a calm solidity, sending them ambling past equally solid-looking buildings and over a truly monumental bridge—which soars over a striped Big Top tent in the final scene. A stately rendition of the episode, less exuberant, but also less fictionalized, than Phil Bildner’s Twenty-One Elephants (2004), illustrated by LeUyen Pham. (author’s note, resource list) (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-618-44887-X
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
A clear, understandable account of a young Jewish boy's terrible experiences during the World War II. In 1944, when Eliezer Wiesel was 15, his town of Sighet (then part of Hungary) was invaded by the German army, who forced all the Jews to live in ghettos. From there, the Wiesel family were sent to concentration camps where, with the exception of Elie, they all were killed. Without fanfare but with dignified emphasis, author Pariser describes the cruelties and horrors of Wiesel's life as an inmate, as well as his subsequent liberation by Allied forces and his future vocation as a journalist, author, speaker, and political activist. Photographs from the WW II period establish a mood of somber witness. With its clear, narrative style, useful bibliography, chronology, and index, this is an excellent introduction to what is undeniably one of the darkest periods in modern history. (Nonfiction. 7-9)
Pub Date: Aug. 15, 1994
ISBN: 1-56294-419-3
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Millbrook
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1994
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