It’s a sweeping overview, but it’s too bland and disorganized to invite repeat flights.
A swift tour of our planet’s surface and the forces that work changes on it.
In painted illustrations, Clohosy Cole sends five young explorers zigzagging from one generic locale to another in no obvious order. They learn the rudiments of latitude and longitude, trek through deserts and other biomes, witness both a tornado and an earthquake, parachute from a plane as a rocket roars past, look out over a river and a coastline, peer into a deep-sea crevasse where two tectonic plates are pulling apart, poke through a huge garbage dump, and finally do some gardening in a futuristic city. Nelson’s easily digestible definitions and explanatory notes, many of which are accompanied by smaller schematic images, are scattered over the scenes in inset blocks. With so much territory to cover it’s not surprising that the level of specific detail is, at best, ankle deep, but the author covers the geophysical basics accurately enough. Erupting volcanoes and cute rainforest monkeys notwithstanding, though, the art is conspicuously lacking in drama or wonder, and the higgledy-piggledy arrangement of the single-topic spreads gives the whole project a perfunctory air. Captions on a detachable fold-out map at the end contain a couple of errors, to boot. Of the five child guides, one is brown-skinned, and the other four are pale.
It’s a sweeping overview, but it’s too bland and disorganized to invite repeat flights. (Nonfiction. 10-13)Pub Date: March 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-78603-062-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Wide Eyed Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
The author of The Snake Scientist (not reviewed) takes the reader along on another adventure, this time to the Bay of Bengal, between India and Bangladesh to the Sundarbans Tiger Preserve in search of man-eating tigers. Beware, he cautions, “Your study subject might be trying to eat you!” The first-person narrative is full of helpful warnings: watch out for the estuarine crocodiles, “the most deadly crocodiles in the world” and the nine different kinds of dangerous sharks, and the poisonous sea snakes, more deadly than the cobra. Interspersed are stories of the people who live in and around the tiger preserve, information on the ecology of the mangrove swamp, myths and legends, and true life accounts of man-eating tigers. (Fortunately, these tigers don’t eat women or children.) The author is clearly on the side of the tigers as she states: “Even if you added up all the people that sick tigers were forced to eat, you wouldn’t get close to the number of tigers killed by people.” She introduces ideas as to why Sundarbans tigers eat so many people, including the theory, “When they attack people, perhaps they are trying to protect the land that they own. And maybe, as the ancient legend says, the tiger really is watching over the forest—for everyone’s benefit.” There are color photographs on every page, showing the landscape, people, and a variety of animals encountered, though glimpses of the tigers are fleeting. The author concludes with some statistics on tigers, information on organizations working to protect them, and a brief bibliography and index. The dramatic cover photo of the tiger will attract readers, and the lively prose will keep them engaged. An appealing science adventure. (Nonfiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-618-07704-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In this glossy photo essay, the author briefly recounts the study and exploration of the moon, beginning with Stonehenge and concluding with the 1998–99 unmanned probe, Lunar Prospector. Most of the dramatic photographs come from NASA and will introduce a new generation of space enthusiasts to the past missions of Project Mercury, Gemini, and most especially the moon missions, Apollo 1–17. There are plenty of photographs of various astronauts in space capsules, space suits, and walking on the moon. Sometimes photographs are superimposed one on another, making it difficult to read. For example, one photograph shows the command module Columbia as photographed from the lunar module and an insert shows the 15-layer space suit and gear Neil Armstrong would wear for moonwalking. That’s a lot to process on one page. Still, the awesome images of footprints on the moon, raising the American flag, and earthrise from the moon, cannot help but raise shivers. The author concludes with a timeline of exploration, Web sites, recommended books, and picture credits. For NASA memorabilia collectors, end papers show the Apollo space badges for missions 11–17. Useful for replacing aging space titles. (Nonfiction. 8-11)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 1-57091-408-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
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