Humor and information combine in appealing nonfiction for middle-grade and middle-school readers.
A lighthearted look at the history of everyone’s favorite pants couched as a detention report written by a couple of middle-school pranksters.
With lively language and amusing anecdotes, Lloyd Kyi (50 Burning Questions, 2010, etc.) turns a product history into an engaging romp through time. From denim’s origins as durable material for mid-19th-century work clothes to the celebrity fashions of today, the author traces both our changing clothing needs and outside influences on what we wear. She gives credit not only to Levi Strauss but also to Nevadan Jacob Davis, who came up with the idea of seams reinforced with rivets. Hanmer’s cartoons place skateboarding storytellers JD and Shred in historical venues, but with modern reactions. Appropriately, Shred, a girl, wears skirts until the 1950s. Full-page, full-color cartoons begin each chapter. Smaller ones shaded with blues grace every page. Along with informative sidebars (printed on scraps of denim with the familiar brass rivets and orange stitching), they break up the text into accessible chunks. The inviting design begins with the cover illustration of baggy low-riders. Libraries that have already purchased Tony Johnston and Stacy Innerst’s Levi Strauss Gets a Bright Idea (2011) will also want this for older readers and for its more thorough account.
Humor and information combine in appealing nonfiction for middle-grade and middle-school readers. (further reading, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 9-13)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-55451-355-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2011
Falters in its oversimplified portrayal of a complicated region and people.
Parallel storylines take readers through the lives of two young people on Sept. 11 in 2001 and 2019.
In the contemporary timeline, Reshmina is an Afghan girl living in foothills near the Pakistan border that are a battleground between the Taliban and U.S. armed forces. She is keen to improve her English while her twin brother, Pasoon, is inspired by the Taliban and wants to avenge their older sister, killed by an American bomb on her wedding day. Reshmina helps a wounded American soldier, making her village a Taliban target. In 2001, Brandon Chavez is spending the day with his father, who works at the World Trade Center’s Windows on the World restaurant. Brandon is heading to the underground mall when a plane piloted by al-Qaida hits the tower, and his father is among those killed. The two storylines develop in parallel through alternating chapters. Gratz’s deeply moving writing paints vivid images of the loss and fear of those who lived through the trauma of 9/11. However, this nuance doesn’t extend to the Afghan characters; Reshmina and Pasoon feel one-dimensional. Descriptions of the Taliban’s Afghan victims and Reshmina's gentle father notwithstanding, references to all young men eventually joining the Taliban and Pasoon's zeal for their cause counteract this messaging. Explanations for the U.S. military invasion of Afghanistan in the author’s note and in characters’ conversations too simplistically present the U.S. presence.
Falters in its oversimplified portrayal of a complicated region and people. (author’s note) (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-338-24575-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2021
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
