From School Library Journal
ea. vol: (Profiles Series). CIP. Hamish Hamilton, dist. by David & Charles. Dec. 1985. PSm $8.95. LC number unavailable. Grade 4-6 These British biographies are balanced, unadorned portraits, lightened by interesting details and moments of humor. They avoid those banes of biographies for children: fictionalizing, premonition and hagiography. Authors and illustrators have kept to standard sources. The books are both accurate and absorbing. The price to be paid by the lonely crusader is made clear in Florence Nightingale , in a neat parallel between her struggle with her family to be trained as a nurse and her struggle with medical authorities to be allowed to practice. Unfortunately, Emmeline Pankhurst is marred by the use of the irritating sexist term "suffragette." This aside, here is another figure whose contribution is well-worth discovering. Especially effective are the descriptions of the force feeding of the imprisoned suffragists and of Pankhurst's autocratic temperament. Edith Cavell begins with a moving description of the return of her remains to England in 1919, a device that is both brave, in revealing the end of the story first, and sensible, because many modern readers will need an introduction to her. In each volume, black-and-white illustrations are occasionally unclear, but these biographies should be useful for social studies background and general interest reading. Barbara Hutcheson, Greater Victoria Public Library, B.C., Canada
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
