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GHOST TOWNS OF THE AMERICAN WEST

Name: GHOST TOWNS OF THE AMERICAN WEST
Author: Raymond Bial
ISBN: 0-618-06557-1

by Raymond Bial ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 2001

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Bial (A Handful of Dirt, p. 299, etc.) conjures up ghostly images of the Wild West with atmospheric photos of weathered clapboard and a tally of evocative names: Tombstone, Deadwood, Goldfield, Progress, Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickock, the OK Corral. Tracing the life cycle of the estimated 30,000 ghost towns (nearly 1300 in Utah alone), he captures some echo of their bustling, rough-and-tumble past with passages from contemporary observers like Mark Twain: “If a man wanted a fight on his hands without any annoying delay, all he had to do was appear in public in a white shirt or stove-pipe hat, and he would be accommodated.” Among shots of run-down mining works, dusty, deserted streets, and dark eaves silhouetted against evening skies, Bial intersperses 19th-century photos and prints for contrast, plus an occasional portrait of a grizzled modern resident. He suggests another sort of resident too: “At night that plaintive hoo-hoo may be an owl nesting in a nearby saguaro cactus—or the moaning of a restless ghost up in the graveyard.” Children seeking a sense of this partly mythic time and place in American history, or just a delicious shiver, will linger over his tribute. (bibliography) (Nonfiction. 9-11)

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-618-06557-1

Page Count: 48

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001

Categories:

CHILDREN'S HISTORY

- BOOK REVIEW
ELLIS ISLAND
by Raymond Bial

- BOOK REVIEW
THE SUPER SOYBEAN
by Raymond Bial

- BOOK REVIEW
WHERE WASHINGTON WALKED
by Raymond Bial

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A LINE CAN GO ANYWHERE

THE BRILLIANT, RESILIENT LIFE OF ARTIST RUTH ASAWA

by Caroline McAlister ; illustrated by Jamie Green ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 25, 2025

A title worth moving to the head of the line.

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An artist grappled with boundaries.

Growing up in California, Ruth Aiko Asawa (1926-2013) was keenly aware of an “invisible line” separating her life at home, where she was called Aiko, from school, where she was known as Ruth—though “she could cross back and forth or even straddle it if she had to.” This beautifully wrought metaphor for a bicultural Japanese American experience is echoed throughout the book: in the lines a young Asawa drew in the dirt at her family farm and the way she lined up for the Pledge of Allegiance at school. The most important lines, however, were those she made as an artist, especially when creativity sustained her while she and other Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II. She studied to become an art teacher, but “because she looked like the enemy, her college wouldn’t place her at a school.” She persevered and, after the war, found her way to Black Mountain College in North Carolina. Drawing inspiration from Mexican wire baskets and memories of barbed wire at the camps, Asawa was driven by the conviction that “art is for everyone.” Infused with emotion, the unflinchingly honest text and exquisite mixed-media art, which layers dazzling pops of blue onto muted backdrops, detail the oppression Asawa faced—and her resilience. An informative author’s note provides additional context for this story of an innovative artist whose legacy of democratizing the arts is utterly inspirational.

A title worth moving to the head of the line. (photograph, bibliography) (Picture-book biography. 7-11)