MAGELLAN’S WORLD
by Stuart Waldman & illustrated by Gregory Manchess
In this fluidly written account, Waldman not only retraces Magellan’s globe-spanning expedition, but places it in its context as a major blow to ancient, constricted views of the world’s size and geography. Interspersed with maps both new and old (including one foldout), Manchess’s big paintings of wave-tossed ships and rugged-looking sailors underscore the dangers of the long voyage, and in a final melodramatic spread capture Magellan’s last moments of battle against attacking islanders. Supplemented by brief extracts from a crewmember’s journal, this makes an exciting enough tale that even readers who shy away from nonfiction will be drawn in—and many will want to go on to Nancy Smiler Levinson’s more detailed Magellan and the First Voyage Around the World (2001) or one of the several other recent similar titles. (source list) (Biography. 10-12)