Audacious, yes, but not in a good way.
A portrait of primatologist Biruté Mary Galdikas and her long career studying Bornean orangutans.
With a magazine-style format (the pages are crowded with sidebars), the book uplifts the life and work of a lesser-known conservation scientist. Beginning with Galdikas’ childhood in Toronto as the daughter of Lithuanian immigrants, the narrative quickly moves on to her start in primatology. When Silvey dives into Galdikas’ exploits in Indonesian Borneo, the author emphasizes Galdikas’ relentlessness despite constant challenges. Curiously, Galdikas’ controversial rehabilitation program for captive orangutans is depicted in near-hagiographic terms. Most glaring is the book’s white-savior tone, in which Silvey problematically represents Indigenous peoples and Galdikas’ paternalism is thinly veiled. In a profile of Toronto’s High Park, the author describes the city’s Indigenous peoples (who are still very much alive today) in a section labeled “Ancient History.” In a similar vein, Galdikas’ shocking “rule for life” is emblazoned across a photograph of her orangutan center’s brown-skinned staff: “Remember that in camp the orangutans come FIRST, science second, local staff and people third, and we, the foreign researchers, LAST.” A white scientist ranking “locals”—whose homeland she views imperiously as a place where “time had stood still”—so low in her hierarchy is offensive.
Audacious, yes, but not in a good way. (foreword, extended resources, author’s note) (Biography. 8-12)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4263-3356-9
Page Count: 96
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share.
A multiaward–winning author recalls her childhood and the joy of becoming a writer.
Writing in free verse, Woodson starts with her 1963 birth in Ohio during the civil rights movement, when America is “a country caught / / between Black and White.” But while evoking names such as Malcolm, Martin, James, Rosa and Ruby, her story is also one of family: her father’s people in Ohio and her mother’s people in South Carolina. Moving south to live with her maternal grandmother, she is in a world of sweet peas and collards, getting her hair straightened and avoiding segregated stores with her grandmother. As the writer inside slowly grows, she listens to family stories and fills her days and evenings as a Jehovah’s Witness, activities that continue after a move to Brooklyn to reunite with her mother. The gift of a composition notebook, the experience of reading John Steptoe’s Stevieand Langston Hughes’ poetry, and seeing letters turn into words and words into thoughts all reinforce her conviction that “[W]ords are my brilliance.” Woodson cherishes her memories and shares them with a graceful lyricism; her lovingly wrought vignettes of country and city streets will linger long after the page is turned.
For every dreaming girl (and boy) with a pencil in hand (or keyboard) and a story to share. (Memoir/poetry. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-399-25251-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere.
This book is buzzing with trivia.
Follow a swarm of bees as they leave a beekeeper’s apiary in search of a new home. As the scout bees traverse the fields, readers are provided with a potpourri of facts and statements about bees. The information is scattered—much like the scout bees—and as a result, both the nominal plot and informational content are tissue-thin. There are some interesting facts throughout the book, but many pieces of trivia are too, well trivial, to prove useful. For example, as the bees travel, readers learn that “onion flowers are round and fluffy” and “fennel is a plant that is used in cooking.” Other facts are oversimplified and as a result are not accurate. For example, monofloral honey is defined as “made by bees who visit just one kind of flower” with no acknowledgment of the fact that bees may range widely, and swarm activity is described as a springtime event, when it can also occur in summer and early fall. The information in the book, such as species identification and measurement units, is directed toward British readers. The flat, thin-lined artwork does little to enhance the story, but an “I spy” game challenging readers to find a specific bee throughout is amusing.
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere. (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-500-65265-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
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