Perfect for Tubman novices but also enjoyable historical reading for those who already know most of the stories.
A concise primer for adults who know the name Harriet Tubman (c. 1822-1913) but want to know more.
Dunbar (History/Rutgers Univ.)—whose second book, Never Caught: The Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge (2017), was a co-winner of the 2018 Frederick Douglass Book Award—is more concerned with letting history come alive than burying it beneath the trappings of academic scholarship—though the notes and bibliography show that she has done her homework. “Here then, presented in a way that I hope is accessible, informative, contemporary, and full of black girl magic, is the multidimensional story of Harriet Tubman Davis, a true boss lady, a superhero, and a warrior,” writes Dunbar in the opening author’s note. From a girlhood bout of epilepsy and a head injury that gave her seizures to her strong religious convictions, Tubman felt that she was guided by “visions and images that predicted the future,” dreams that would alert her to danger and guide her actions “literally for the rest of her life.” Dunbar thus makes the same leap of faith that Tubman did (and encourages readers to do so, as well): to give her mission a sense of divine guidance and purpose. During her life, her God worked in mysterious ways, responding to her prayers to end the life of the 47-year-old slave owner who was planning to put her and some of her brothers on the auction block. She prayed for his death, her prayers were answered, and “Harriet’s immediate reaction to the news was pure joy.” Her single-minded conviction and fortitude not only served her well as a runaway slave who helped so many others escape; they guided her through a life of service, tending to the medical care of Civil War soldiers, fighting for suffrage, and working to establish a home for the aged and indigent. With illustrations and catchy asides enhancing the conversational style, this smoothly readable narrative tells a story kept alive through oral tradition for decades.
Perfect for Tubman novices but also enjoyable historical reading for those who already know most of the stories.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-982139-59-9
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Sept. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2025 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.
