Entertaining and instructive, if more than a bit shaky in its historical reaches (source note, index) (Nonfiction. 11-14)
A biologist’s thoughts on the causes and courses of arms races—in the natural world and elsewhere.
Recasting his adult-oriented Animal Weapons: The Evolution of Battle (2014) for a younger audience, Emlen focuses on dung beetles, which he studied for many years in locales from Panama to the Serengeti. He describes in fascinating detail how he designed studies and experiments that proved not only that horned varieties fought individual duels over females underground, but that they also produced offspring with larger or smaller weapons through a process of natural selection. It’s a great account of science in the field and in action…until, that is, he suddenly switches course, trying to extend his findings to the history of human warfare with a claim that “arms races” are effectively the same. This leads to some questionable, not to mention sexist, claims, notably that armored “knights errant” fought each other for “forty or more years of continuous battle” to win “the hand of an heiress” and that the Cold War was, like those battling beetles, a one-on-one duel writ large. More defensibly, he also discusses how weapons systems, natural and high-tech alike, become ever more unwieldy until rendered obsolete by “cheaters,” such as, in the case of humans, guerillas and “cyberhackers” who refuse to fight face to face. Maps, paintings, and photos, many drawn from the previous edition, complement the text.
Entertaining and instructive, if more than a bit shaky in its historical reaches (source note, index) (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Dec. 24, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-14711-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2019
Here is an adventure in a unique setting. The lively text and lovely watercolors document three and a half months of a summer the artist and author spent at the South Pole, as part of the National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists & Writers Program. Hooper describes everyday life aboard the research ship Laurence M. Gould, a sturdy orange icebreaker that scientists use to travel between the islands to study the wide variety of animals who come each year to breed and raise their young. An assortment of penguins, elephant seals, giant petrels, huge skuas, and leopard seals hold center stage. Scientists are less important than the serious business of successfully raising young in the short summer season. The author captures the drama of the ice-cold ocean, alive with life: “Swarms of barrel-shaped blue-tinged salps, stuck together in floating chains. Minute creatures with red eyes. Sliding through the water in a curving path like a ribbon.” The artist provides striking paintings of the landscape and the animals in soft washy colors, and quick pencil sketches. The ice is lemon gold with mauve shadows, and the sea a silver gray in the 24-hour day. Animals are expressive and individual. The krill, the tiny shrimp-like creatures that form the backbone of the ocean food chain, appear in luminous glory. The author concludes with a page on global warming, a map of the islands visited, and an index. From cover to cover a personal and informative journey. (Nonfiction. 7-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7922-7188-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2000
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
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