Quick, name the first woman to fly solo around the world! Bet you can't.
Spun from interviews with the pilot herself (who died in 2014) and family members, plus a 1970 autobiographical account, this often–hair-raising tale not only rescues a major aeronautical feat from near-total obscurity, but presents an eye-opening picture of another era’s gender roles and expectations. Mock faced hazards including high winds, icing, mental exhaustion, and a dead radio on the monthlong 1964 flight. The (as a local newspaper put it) “petite Bexley housewife and mother” also attended to proper dress and shoes along the way. As Pimm describes it, she also had to put up with a controlling husband, who comes across as a real toad by continually urging her to cut out the sightseeing and unilaterally canceling planned tributes in Hawaii to speed her along; he also wasn’t above emotional blackmail: “no word from you all day after landing in Tripoli,” reads a telegram. “Your mother in tears. Love, Russ.” Tedious minor details and irrelevant sidebars make the flight a rough one, but readers will walk away afterward appreciating the magnitude of Mock’s accomplishment—and, with help from the broad array of snapshots, news photos, and personal documents, of her spirit and character, too.
Loosely knit but notable both for the journey it commemorates and its view of a time’s parochial attitudes. (timeline, endnotes, glossary, reading lists) (Biography. 11-14)Pub Date: March 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8214-2216-8
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Ohio Univ.
Review Posted Online: Jan. 9, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2016
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Cold indeed is the heart not made warm by this bubbly fairy-tale romance. Raised by a kindly forest troll, Christian knows little of the world beyond what he can see through his telescope, but gazing upon a nearby castle, he falls head over heels for Princess Marigold. What chance has he, though, as a (supposed) commoner? When at last he nerves himself to send her a message via carrier pigeon, she answers and the courtship is on—via “p-mail” at first, then, after he lands a job as a castle servant, face to face. Setting numerous fairy-tale conventions just a bit askew, Ferris (Of Sound Mind, 2001, etc.) surrounds her two smart, immensely likable teenagers, who are obviously made for each other, with rival suitors, hyperactive dogs, surprising allies, and strong adversaries. The most notable among the last is devious, domineering Queen Olympia, intent on forcing Marigold into marriage with a penniless, but noble, cipher. The author gets her commonsensical couple to “I Do” through brisk palace intrigue, life-threatening situations, riotous feasting, and general chaos; Queen Olympia gets suitable comeuppance, and the festivities are capped by the required revelation that Christian is actually heir to the throne of neighboring Zandelphia. Fans of Gail Carson Levine’s Princess Tales will be in familiar territory here, as well as seventh heaven. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-15-216791-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2002
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
Did you like this book?
A world tour featuring select highlights of human culture, from 37,000-year-old rock paintings to modern murals and architecture.
Title notwithstanding, after a visit to the prehistoric petroglyphs at Nawarla Gabarnmung in northern Australia (and with a 19th-century stop at Haida Gwaii for a gander at Pacific Northwest Native woodcarving), Rosen focuses more on cities or large settlements and urban ways of life through the ages than on specific works or styles of art. His itinerary is determinedly “global,” though, covering every continent but Antarctica from 13th-century B.C.E. Thebes to art and architecture created for the 2016 Rio Olympics. Each stop along the way opens with an overview of the site and its distinctive character accompanied by a wide-angle picture painted by Dalzell and dotted with tiny clipped photos of statues or other figures. On the following spread further concise observations on customs and culture accompany three or four smaller (sometimes, alas, minuscule) photos of significant monuments, artifacts, or paintings with explanatory notes. Though the author hustles readers past the Rosetta Stone and Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man without benefit of visuals, a satiric Egyptian papyrus offers an eye-opening treat—and in more recent times he boosts the presence of women among his sparse tally of artists by, for instance, pairing works of Judith Leyster and Rembrandt, Mary Cassatt with Claude Monet.
Misleadingly titled but broader in scope and less Eurocentric than standard surveys. (glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: April 3, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-500-65101-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2018
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
Did you like this book?
© Copyright 2022 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
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.
