EXPLORING SUMMER

by Sandra Markle ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1987

A browsing book of nature facts, riddles, science games and experiments, marred by poor organization and faulty scholarship. Facts and activities dealing with weather, astronomy, animals, plants, explorers, heat and light are casually arranged under six chapter headings that will be of little use for assignments. ""Going Places"" begins with a two-page discussion of exploring new frontiers, pauses for a recipe for an apple snack, gives a method for measuring footsteps, a riddle and a chart of six unrelated and fairly obscure explorers. A chart of eight world swimming records contains six errors when checked against the 1987 World Almanac. The reader is told: Wet N' Wild Water-Action Park has the world's highest slide; the Cosmopolitan sailfish is believed the world's fastest fish; and stag beetles with the largest jaws are usually the weakest--all this, though, without source or attribution. The whole suffers from lack of precision in the use of terms and scientific concepts. For example, the author states: ""A sunflower head is actually a disk of many small tubular flowers surrounded by a fringe of large yellow petals."" In fact, the sunflower is comprised of two distinct kinds of flowers: disk flowers and ray flowers. The Sierra Club Summer Book provides similar information and projects with better organization and greater accuracy.

Pub Date: April 1, 1987

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 152

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1987

Categories: CHILDREN'S