New Books: Black Gold

Since my sons are still just seven and three years old, my coverage of history books for kids doesn't usually get out of the picture-book genre. But I'm enough of a general nonfiction reader myself that occasionally I run across something for older readers that I have to mention here (and save for my own children till they're a bit older).

The history of oil—that is, the petroleum kind—doesn't seem at first like much of a topic for a children's-book author. It's complicated, chemistry-laden, and politically, well, explosive. But the subject is, one must admit, one of the vital ones of our time, and writer Albert Marrin has taken a crack at a short history for middle- and high-schoolers of the greasy, precious stuff and humankind's interactions with it in Black Gold: The Story of Oil in Our Lives.

It's an ambitious crack at that, starting with the geological and chemical science of how oil and the other fossil fuels come to exist. Marrin then moves chronologically through man's first fleeting brushes against these powerful energy sources, up through the explosion (that word again) of their use beginning in—fueling, actually, if you will—the Industrial Revolution.

From this point on, the author does a commendable job of balancing the massively positive short-term (no more giant piles of horse waste fouling city streets) and long-term (um...all of modern technology) effects these energy sources have had with their negative counterparts (air and water becoming fouled in different ways; global warming). He concludes with a forthright presentation of the energy challenges facing humanity in the 21st century, from peak oil to melting icecaps to geopolitical power struggles. Somehow he does all this in a remarkably gentle, even-handed, and readable fashion that I think most parents of any nonradical political persuasion will be comfortable with. (Needless to say, those for whom any nonderisive mention of the words global warming is anathema may wish to stay away from this book. As well as most other nonfiction.)

It's a remarkable achievement, presenting this much information in such digestible fashion, and in a mere 181 pages. And when Dash or Griff in future years comes to me saying he has a report to write for school on oil, or energy in general, this is the book I'm going to send him to first.

[Cover image courtesy of Random House]

Security Blanket: Garibaldi's Biscuits

When I was writing the other day about historical-fiction picture books, one of the elite slipped my mind: Ralph Steadman's Garibaldi's Biscuits. Anytime a celebrated artist or illustrator delves into children's books, it's worth a look, but we've been a Steadman fan in particular since his work on the imagery surrounding my wife's favorite movie, Withnail and I. (Those less well versed in moderately culty British cinema of the 1980s may know Steadman's unique style—"chaos focused into expression" is the best way I can sum it up—from his Hunter S. Thompson illustrations, as well as his work in the New Yorker and other U.S. magazines.)

Garibaldi's Biscuits presents itself as a tale of the origin of a cookie, and while this currant-studded delicacy is much better known in Steadman's native England than in the U.S., that matters little for one's enjoyment of the book. For the author uses the real history of Garibaldi's return to Italy to fight for its freedom merely as a leaping-off point into flights of wonderful fantasy, involving a pants-wearing pet woodpecker named Pecorino, battles fought with water balloons, and the like. (It feels a lot like a picture book from Monty Python.) The reader's first hint that Steadman may be going for a more imaginative than actual origin tale here comes when he says the belt buckles worn by Garibaldi and his troops were as large as pizzas, then reconsiders and follows that up with "In fact, they <>were pizzas." And off we go...

We're in experienced and expert hands here, so the offbeat narrative, much like the rip-roaring ink-spotted art itself, is delightful rather than unsettling. (And for those who want to sort out truth from fiction, the author takes a page from Lane Smith with a brief run through the details at the end.) The grounded surrealism of Garibaldi's Biscuits has been pretty much irresistible to my six-year-old since we got it a couple of years back, with staying power, and it's always an enjoyable bedtime read for us parents, too.

[Photos: Whitney Webster]

New Books: The Story of Britain

Sometimes a new children's book makes me say to myself, Man, I wish this had been out when I was a kid. And since I’ve always been a history fan—I’m the son of an ancient historian, so it seems to run in the family—Patrick Dillon's The Story of Britain certainly had a head start at that honor. This handsome hardcover for historically inclined middle schoolers and up ambitiously takes its reader, as its subtitle says, "from the Norman conquest to the European Union."

Children's history is a tricky business, though, and most of the attempts I've seen fall into one of two traps. Either they hew too closely to the old-school "just the facts and dates" approach, resulting in dry, dull pages that even the most history-inclined kid would give up on, or they’re so concerned with amping up the action that they skip vital issues entirely—and end up being fairly useless as history.

Dillon neatly walks a path between those two poles, by containing every episode and subject in a short, digestible chapter of a mere page or two in length. With large subjects that would be difficult to sum up in that little space—World War II, say—he expands on his schema rather than deserting it, devoting several of his brief chapters to different aspects.

This pays off marvelously, making The Story of Britain doubly useful, as both a fast journey through the entirety of British history and an excellent quick reference on the individual subjects. (In that regard, it’s even handy for parents who might be looking for a speedy refresher on the Wars of the Roses or the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Hey, it could happen!) The format, and Dillon’s perfectly light touch as a writer, keep everything moving along nicely, while the many evocative watercolors by illustrator P. J. Lynch (some examples are shown below) bring the people and topics he's covering even more vividly to life.

The author is even brave enough to bring his book right up to the modern day, always a risky enterprise for any historian, since politics inevitably color any interpretation of recent events. Dillon chooses balance, presenting both sides of these often controversial arguments. This will tend to frustrate parents of just about any political bent, but does allow the author to avoid any serious accusations of attempted brainwashing of our youth, I suppose. (And to be fair, a child interested in learning more about the policies of Margaret Thatcher, say, will find no shortage of opinionated arguments at easy reach.)

Certainly, when covering so much time in fairly compact space, compromises must be made, and The Story of Britain makes no pretense of being an in-depth, comprehensive history. It’s more a point of first entry into serious history for children: Dillon wants to cultivate their interest and help it grow, rather than stomping on it as many a school textbook has done through the years. I may be a bit predisposed, but I'd say he's succeeded marvelously, producing perhaps the best large-scale history book for kids since E. H. Gombrich’s 75-year old A Little History of the World. (And to be honest, I've never been entirely sure that book—while wonderful—is really for children!)

[Images courtesy of Candlewick Press]