Aside from the smudgy pastel illustrations provided by Anne Sibley O’Brien, this mother-and-son effort earns high marks both for adding less-celebrated names to the pantheon of peacemongers and for noting that the nonviolent approach to civil protest doesn’t always work—which makes the courage of those who engage in it all the more exemplary. Each of the 16 chronologically arranged chapters highlights a particular event, from the Gandhi-led mass burning of Indian registration documents in 1908 Johannesburg to the worldwide anti-Iraq war protest on February 5, 2003, then closes with a set of rubrics that add detail or historical background. Along with the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr., Muhammad Ali and César Chávez, young readers will meet—and come away admiring—Vietnam’s Thich Nhat Hanh, Australian Charles Perkins and the Students For Aboriginal Action, Belfast’s Peace People, the Mothers of the Disappeared in Buenos Aires and others who understood that “nonviolence is the weapon of the strong.” Might that admiration grow into emulation in some? (annotated bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-58089-129-5
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2008
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This liberally illustrated survival tale makes reading as compelling as any of the recent accounts of Ernest Shackleton’s contemporaneous ventures. Unlike Shackleton, Australian geologist Mawson mounted his ill-starred expedition for (mostly) scientific purposes. Having set up base camp at Cape Denison, soon discovered to be “the windiest place in the world,” Mawson departed with a small party on sledges in November 1912. He returned alone and on foot the following February, having lost nearly all supplies, and both human companions (one, Bredeson hints, to vitamin-A poisoning from a forced diet of sled-dog livers), but surviving a 320-mile trek back. Supplemented by expedition photos of dim, windswept landscapes, and laced with horrifying details—at one point Mawson takes off his socks, and his soles peel off with them—this lesser-known, tragic episode from the golden age of Antarctic exploration won’t fail to give readers both chills and thrills. (roster, time line, resource lists, index) (Nonfiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-7922-6140-2
Page Count: 64
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2003
Categories: CHILDREN'S HISTORY
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BOOK REVIEW
In this companion to Portraits of War: Civil War Photographers and Their Work (1998), Sullivan presents an album of the prominent ships and men who fought on both sides, matched to an engrossing account of the war's progress: at sea, on the Mississippi, and along the South's well-defended coastline. In his view, the issue never was in doubt, for though the Confederacy fought back with innovative ironclads, sleek blockade runners, well-armed commerce raiders, and sturdy fortifications, from the earliest stages the North was able to seal off, and then take, one major southern port after another. The photos, many of which were made from fragile glass plates whose survival seems near-miraculous, are drawn from private as well as public collections, and some have never been published before. There aren't any action shots, since mid-19th-century photography required very long exposure times, but the author compensates with contemporary prints, plus crisp battle accounts, lucid strategic overviews, and descriptions of the technological developments that, by war's end, gave this country a world-class navy. He also profiles the careers of Matthew Brady and several less well-known photographers, adding another level of interest to a multi-stranded survey. (source notes, index) (Nonfiction. 10-13)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7613-1553-5
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Twenty-First Century/Millbrook
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
Categories: CHILDREN'S HISTORY
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