We Were There, Too!

Starred review from August 20, 2001
Hoose's (It's Our World, Too!) impressive survey places young people at the center of every event that shaped America, from 12-year-old Diego Bermúdez who sailed with Christopher Columbus in 1492 to high school junior Claudette Colvin's refusal to give up her seat in 1955 Montgomery, Ala., nine months before Rosa Parks. The diverse contributions of these gutsy children and teens include 16-year-old Deborah Sampson, who masqueraded as Private Robert Shirtliffe and fought in the Revolutionary War, and 15-year-old Joe Nuxhall who, in the absence of many major league players-turned-soldiers, pitched for the Cincinnati Reds during WWII. Readers will appreciate the brief epilogues that explain what happened to each person in adulthood. For instance, Chuka, a nine-year-old Hopi Indian subjected to assimilation in white schools in 1899, "struggled to live in two worlds" throughout his life, and high school junior Peggy Eaton, who rode the rails in 1938, continued to live a life of adventure as a missionary and mountain climber. Informative sidebars provide additional, and sometimes humorous, historical asides to the biographical profiles (e.g., a story problem in a Confederate math book during the Civil War calculates the death toll of Yankees). Pictures, maps and prints help bring these stories to life, but it is the actions of these young people that will inspire readers to realize that they, too, can play a part in making America's history. Ages 10-up.

Starred review from August 1, 2001
Gr 6 Up-A treasure chest of history come to life, this is an inspired collection. Readers could easily get lost in it by simply dipping into one compelling story after another. The selections are arranged chronologically, beginning with 12-year-old Diego Berm dez sailing to the New World with Columbus and ending (66 stories later) with 9-year-old Kory Johnson, who started Children for a Safe Environment. There are famous figures such as Pocahontas and Sacajawea, and less famous, such as Billy Bates and Dick King, both of whom escaped from Andersonville, and Enrique Esparza, survivor of the Alamo. Each story ends with a brief paragraph describing "What Happened to-" the person after that moment in history. The writing is a bit stiff, but it rarely gets in the way of the stories. Because the book is packed with historical documents, evocatively illustrated (with black-and-white photographs, engravings, drawings, maps, and the like), and full of eyewitness quotations, it should prove valuable to young historians and researchers.-Herman Sutter, Saint Agnes Academy, Houston, TX

Copyright 2001 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2001
Gr. 5-8. In his book, "It's Our World Too! Stories of Young People Who Are Making a "Difference (1993), Hoose touched upon some of history's young "orphans," among them, the "newsies" who formed a union against the Hearst and Pulitzer papers. Here, Hoose gives those children voice bringing them front and center, along with many other young people who helped shape our country. Using mostly primary sources--journals, diaries, interviews--he takes readers on a ride through American history, starting at the very beginning: he introduces the cabin boys who sailed with Columbus and the young Taino Indians who greeted them. More than 60 young people of all races and religions are profiled: Phillis Wheatley, a slave and poet; Sybil Ludington, who outrode Paul Revere to warn the colonists about the British; Bill Cody, later Buffalo Bill, who as a young teen rode for the Pony Express. There are other famous names, too--Pocahontas, Cesar Chavez, Bill Gates--but most are young people who made their mark, then faded from memory. This attractive book reintroduces them. Black-and-white photos, maps, and memorabilia illustrate the text; and sidebars add information about everything from baseball to the reasons the Mormons went to Salt Lake. The only disappointment is the sourcing. Books are listed for each chapter with asterisks designating those appropriate for children, but that hardly seems enough. What's needed are more specifics about where the information and quotations came from. Teachers will find numerous ways to use each profile, but children will just enjoy flipping through the pages; they'll find themselves touched in many ways. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)