Lugovskaya began her diary about her life in Moscow in 1932 when she was 13. She continued writing about her activities and thoughts until 1937 when she and her family were raided by Stalin’s secret police. The title does not refer to life in Siberia, but about everyday events and her adolescent angst at school and home, her social life, her friends and her frequent comments about wanting to commit suicide. Nina is endlessly in and out of love and worries about her appearance since she is self-conscious about an eye condition (a crossed eye). Readers can see what life was like under Stalin, and they will learn about the Soviet school system and the social life of young people. But will they care? The diary has been compared to Anne Frank’s, but that is neither correct nor apt. Lugovskaya was not hidden nor did she perish when the family was sent to Siberia. Explanatory notes are added to some entries, which might help readers. Includes photos and a reading list. (Biography. 12-15)
Pub Date: June 18, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-618-60575-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2007
This oversized, handsome book is an excellent introduction to one of America’s great photographers and her work, which influenced generations of others who followed her craft. Rubin (Toilets, Toasters, and Telephones, 1998, etc.) covers Bourke- White’s life chronologically, from her youth, when she wanted nothing more than to be a herpetologist, through her college years, when she first took a photography class, to her subsequent struggle to find her place in a largely male-dominated profession, photojournalism. By the time she was 30, Bourke-White had made her mark, and was able to earn a handsome living as she traveled the world, not only consorting with presidents and princes, but photographing some of the planet’s most wretched places, including concentration camps. Some of her most powerful photographs illustrate the book, and also give an insight into era in which she earned her place as an artist. Rubin makes clear that Bourke-White’s reputation continues to grow, providing researchers and browsers alike with a warm, admiring glimpse of a woman and her times. (notes, bibliography, index) (Biography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-8109-4381-6
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
This entry in the Oxford Portraits series is both very good and very useful. White presents a clear biography of the Supreme Court justice who served in the Civil War, studied law, and lived long in the shadow of his famous writer father of the same name. By the time he came to the Supreme Court, he was already 60 years old, but served for three decades more. White creates a vivid portrait of this scholarly and philosophical legal thinker while including rich details of his intellectual but reserved home life and his affectionate flirtations with many women. More than that, readers will absorb a history of the development of legal education, the growth of the Supreme Court, and how law unfolds as a study and a discipline. White is especially felicitous in explaining how the elegance of Holmes’s prose occasionally obscured the legal point he was making. Quotations from Holmes’s writing and picture captions with further details add to the story, and not the least of its accomplishments is to show a man who began the greatest of his career challenges when he was already perceived of as old. Excellent. (chronology, further reading, index) (Biography. 10-12)
Pub Date: Nov. 12, 1999
ISBN: 0-19-511667-4
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1999
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