Perforce superficial but tailor-made to lay out, and with, on a clear stretch of floor.
Thirteen accordion-folded feet of North American history.
Printed on both sides and parading chronologically over the past 13,000 years, this panoramic timeline includes some notes on the continent’s natural history but leans largely toward human events and cultures—from an observation about the sophisticated medical practices of the ancient Aleuts (dated 10,000 B.C.E.) to the election in 2019 of two women of Indigenous heritage to the U.S. Congress. Along with using careful, respectful language when referring to Native groups and “enslaved people,” Albee highlights women, both in general comments about their influence in various cultures and by adding several, such as Mexico’s Sor Juana and Canada’s Laura Secord, to her select roster of significant historical figures. This evenhanded approach also comes out in, for instance, a comment that the U.S. earned its independence with “a ragtag army and a lot of help from France,” references to “white emigrants” moving westward in the 19th century, and the dates when all three North American countries entered World War II. Exley uses both general placement and a four-color system to differentiate small scenes and figures in northern, central, southern, or Caribbean regions. Sandwiched between maps of the continent, his impressionistic background landscapes occasionally give way to watery stretches that provide both additional information about select topics and visual relief.
Perforce superficial but tailor-made to lay out, and with, on a clear stretch of floor. (index, resource lists) (Informational novelty. 7-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-9999679-2-5
Page Count: 22
Publisher: What on Earth Books
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care.
In 1977, the oil carrier Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of oil into a formerly pristine Alaskan ocean inlet, killing millions of birds, animals, and fish. Despite a cleanup, crude oil is still there.
The Winters foretold the destructive powers of the atomic bomb allusively in The Secret Project (2017), leaving the actuality to the backmatter. They make no such accommodations to young audiences in this disturbing book. From the dark front cover, on which oily blobs conceal a seabird, to the rescuer’s sad face on the back, the mother-son team emphasizes the disaster. A relatively easy-to-read and poetically heightened text introduces the situation. Oil is pumped from the Earth “all day long, all night long, / day after day, year after year” in “what had been unspoiled land, home to Native people // and thousands of caribou.” The scale of extraction is huge: There’s “a giant pipeline” leading to “enormous ships.” Then, crash. Rivers of oil gush out over three full-bleed wordless pages. Subsequent scenes show rocks, seabirds, and sea otters covered with oil. Finally, 30 years later, animals have returned to a cheerful scene. “But if you lift a rock… // oil / seeps / up.” For an adult reader, this is heartbreaking. How much more difficult might this be for an animal-loving child?
Like oil itself, this is a book that needs to be handled with special care. (author’s note, further reading) (Informational picture book. 9-12)Pub Date: March 31, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5344-3077-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
Essential.
A measured corrective to pervasive myths about what is often referred to as the “first Thanksgiving.”
Contextualizing them within a Native perspective, Newell (Passamaquoddy) touches on the all-too-familiar elements of the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving and its origins and the history of English colonization in the territory now known as New England. In addition to the voyage and landfall of the Mayflower, readers learn about the Doctrine of Discovery that arrogated the lands of non-Christian peoples to European settlers; earlier encounters between the Indigenous peoples of the region and Europeans; and the Great Dying of 1616-1619, which emptied the village of Patuxet by 1620. Short, two- to six-page chapters alternate between the story of the English settlers and exploring the complex political makeup of the region and the culture, agriculture, and technology of the Wampanoag—all before covering the evolution of the holiday. Refreshingly, the lens Newell offers is a Native one, describing how the Wampanoag and other Native peoples received the English rather than the other way around. Key words ranging from estuary to discover are printed in boldface in the narrative and defined in a closing glossary. Nelson (a member of the Leech Lake Band of Minnesota Chippewa) contributes soft line-and-color illustrations of the proceedings. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Essential. (Nonfiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-72637-4
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Scholastic Nonfiction
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
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