This engaging and insightful biography focuses primarily on Darwin’s five-year voyage aboard the Beagle and the years following in which he formulated and published his revolutionary theories on evolution and natural selection. As a child and adolescent, Darwin is depicted as precocious and insatiably curious but a reluctant student regarding formal studies. Readers are left with a strong understanding of which scientists influenced Darwin in his own research and the process by which he arrived at a unique understanding through his own discoveries and observations. Darwin’s writings are quoted extensively. Sidebars throughout citing cultural and historical milestones offer readers a good sense of Darwin’s times. In an epilogue, the authors offer a concise overview of the controversy Darwin’s theories on evolution and natural selection continues to stir. The text is effectively supported by maps, photographs and other archival images. Backmatter includes chronologies, notes and suggestions for further reading. The detailed focus on Darwin’s scientific pursuits makes this book a good complement to the personal portrait offered in Deborah Heiligman’s Charles & Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith (2009). (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59643-374-8
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Neal Porter/Flash Point/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2010
Remarking that ``nothing about the weather is very simple,'' Simon goes on to describe how the sun, atmosphere, earth's rotation, ground cover, altitude, pollution, and other factors influence it; briefly, he also tells how weather balloons gather information. Even for this outstanding author, it's a tough, complex topic, and he's not entirely successful in simplifying it; moreover, the import of the striking uncaptioned color photos here isn't always clear. One passage—``Cumulus clouds sometimes build up into towering masses called cumulus congestus, or swelling cumulus, which may turn into cumulonimbus clouds''—is superimposed on a blue-gray, cloud-covered landscape. But which kind of clouds are these? Another photo, in blue-black and white, shows what might be precipitation in the upper atmosphere, or rain falling on a darkened landscape, or...? Generally competent and certainly attractive, but not Simon's best. (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-688-10546-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1993
The straight-arrow son of a maybe-federal agent (he’s not quite sure) turns eco-terrorist in this first offering for kids from one of detective fiction’s funniest novelists. Fans of Hiaasen’s (Basket Case, 2001, etc.) novels for adults may wonder how well his profane and frequently kinky writing will adapt to a child’s audience; the answer is, remarkably well. Roy Eberhardt has recently arrived in Florida; accustomed to being the new kid after several family moves, he is more of an observer than a participant. When he observes a bare-footed boy running through the subdivisions of Coconut Grove, however, he finds himself compelled to follow and, later, to ally himself with the strange boy called Mullet Fingers. Meanwhile, the dimwitted but appealingly dogged Officer Delinko finds himself compelled to crack the case of the mysterious vandals at the construction site of a new Mother Paula’s All-American Pancake House—it couldn’t have anything to do with those cute burrowing owls, could it? The plot doesn’t overwhelm with surprises; even the densest readers will soon suss out the connections between Mullet Fingers, the owls, and Mother Paula’s steadfast denial of the owls’ existence. The fun lies in Hiaasen’s trademark twisted characters, including Dana Matherson, the class bully who regularly beats up on Roy and whose unwitting help Roy wickedly enlists; Beatrice Leep, Mullet Fingers’s fiercely loyal sister and co-conspirator; Curly, Mother Paula’s hilariously inept foreman; and Roy’s equally straight-arrow parents, who encourage him to do the right thing without exactly telling him how. Roy is rather surprisingly engaging, given his utter and somewhat unnatural wholesomeness; it’s his kind of determined innocence that sees through the corruption and compromises of the adult world to understand what must be done to make things right. If the ending is somewhat predictable, it is also entirely satisfying—Hoot is, indeed, a hoot. (Fiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2002
ISBN: 0-375-82181-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2002
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