Clearly organized and accessibly written, this is a welcome overview.
From reintroducing keystone species and making wildlife corridors to sharing city space and engineering de-extinction, people are working to rethink the relationship between humans and the natural world.
This evenhanded introduction to the concept of rewilding is lavishly illustrated with stock photographs breaking up the text and adding appeal for middle-grade and middle school readers. Topics are covered each to a double-page spread, presenting first rationale and definitions (rewilding, cores, corridors, and keystone species) and then examples from around the world, both species- and place-specific. The authors, Canadian sisters with a long track record of successful books about the natural world, write with an immediacy that will appeal to nature-loving readers, who will learn about efforts to restore habitats and repopulate them with native species. They discuss animals from trumpeter swans and American eels to butterflies and jaguars. There are success stories: peregrine falcons, back from the brink of extinction, live on city skyscrapers alongside humans; some commercial cod fishing has returned to Newfoundland. There are problems: no one has yet discovered where eels spawn; there isn’t enough room in a Netherlands wetland for the keystone species that would keep introduced herbivores in check. And there are interesting new wild spaces: the High Line in New York City; the demilitarized zone between the Koreas.
Clearly organized and accessibly written, this is a welcome overview. (glossary, sources, further reading, photo credits, index) (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-55451-962-0
Page Count: 88
Publisher: Annick Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
Hot on the heels of the well-received Leonardo da Vinci (2005) comes another agreeably chatty entry in the Giants of Science series. Here the pioneering physicist is revealed as undeniably brilliant, but also cantankerous, mean-spirited, paranoid and possibly depressive. Newton’s youth and annus mirabilis receive respectful treatment, the solitude enforced by family estrangement and then the plague seen as critical to the development of his thoughtful, methodical approach. His subsequent squabbles with the rest of the scientific community—he refrained from publishing one treatise until his rival was dead—further support the image of Newton as a scientific lone wolf. Krull’s colloquial treatment sketches Newton’s advances in clearly understandable terms without bogging the text down with detailed explanations. A final chapter on “His Impact” places him squarely in the pantheon of great thinkers, arguing that both his insistence on the scientific method and his theories of physics have informed all subsequent scientific thought. A bibliography, web site and index round out the volume; the lack of detail on the use of sources is regrettable in an otherwise solid offering for middle-grade students. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-05921-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
This glossy, colorful title in the “I Want To Be” series has visual appeal but poor organization and a fuzzy focus, which limits its usefulness. Each double-paged layout introduces a new topic with six to eight full-color photographs and a single column of text. Topics include types of environmentalists, eco-issues, waste renewal, education, High School of Environmental Studies, environmental vocabulary, history of environmentalism, famous environmentalists, and the return of the eagle. Often the photographs have little to do with the text or are marginal to the topic. For example, a typical layout called “Some Alternative Solutions” has five snapshots superimposed on a double-page photograph of a California wind farm. The text discusses ways to develop alternative forms of energy and “encourage environmentally friendly lifestyles.” Photos include “a healer who treats a patient with alternative therapy using sound and massage,” and “the Castle,” a house built of “used tires and aluminum cans.” Elsewhere, “Did You Know . . . ” shows a dramatic photo of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, but the text provides odd facts such as “ . . . that in Saudi Arabia there are solar-powered pay phones in the desert?” Some sections seem stuck in, a two-page piece on the effects of “El Niño” or 50 postage-stamp–sized photos of endangered species. The author concludes with places to write for more information and a list of photo credits. Pretty, but little here to warrant purchase. (Nonfiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-15-201862-X
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2000
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