An almost savory assemblage that’s spoiled by too many stale ingredients.
A view of our planet and our place on it in terms of the four classical elements: earth, air, fire, and water.
It’s not a very strong conceit—showing strain almost immediately as the “Earth” section begins with the observation that 30 percent of our “rocky” home is actually oxygen—but for each of the four elements the author offers 29 double-page–spread introductions to a wide array of at least indirectly related topics. These range from surveys of the Earth’s hot interior and changing surface to the origins of life and of such technological wonders as cast-iron stoves as well as the golden ages both of exploration and of piracy, types of waterfalls, major historical fires, and what it might be like to live underwater. The authors add crunchy bits to this browser’s banquet by giving Gustav Whitehead pride of place over the Wright brothers as the first to fly, including the recently discovered Hamza (which flows more than two miles beneath the Amazon) in their tally of big rivers, and other surprises. Still, along with underseasoned elements including a reference to “the freezing part of the outer solar system” and a timeline point quaintly labeled “Man evolves,” Brake’s claim that in the wake of Columbus “people who’d never met due to being separated by the seas could now interact just as we all do today!” introduces, to say the least, a historically disingenuous sour note. Likewise less-than-palatable are Kearney’s cartoon renditions of pirates, ancient and prehistoric people, and modern figures as, with only rare exceptions (and those mostly in the occasional photos), white—one notable exception is a group of Navajo fire dancers portrayed as identical brown lads in loincloths.
An almost savory assemblage that’s spoiled by too many stale ingredients. (index, annotated bibliography) (Nonfiction. 10-13)Pub Date: Nov. 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-78701-278-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Lonely Planet
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
Readers with a less-than-burning interest may struggle…or find that interest kindled by the end.
A visual history of our planet’s long career as a nursery for living things.
A brown-skinned paleontologist in a lab coat patiently guides three chattering listeners through the ages from Earth’s fiery formation through climate and other geophysical changes to the present day’s “sixth period of mass extinction.” As she goes, she rolls out polysyllabic terms and nomenclature at a rate that may leave casual readers struggling to keep up but will undoubtedly elevate the pulses of devoted young STEM-winders. Side comments from her audience add common-language context (“The Carboniferous is the age of coal…” one says, while the other concludes, “…and also the age of roaches!”). Though blocks of narrative crowd Barman’s panels, her cartoon portraits of alien-looking sea life evolving first into extinct, pop-eyed plant eaters and toothy, slavering predators, then finally familiar creatures such as us, flesh out the fossil story in lighthearted but reasonably accurate detail. (“Lighthearted” except for one scene of a poached rhino with its horn bloodily removed, that is.) Animals hog the spotlight, and a specious claim that all stars have planets mars the closing vision of new kinds of life arising both on our own world and elsewhere. Still, this French import offers an overview as coherent as it is chronologically broad…particularly for readers not intimidated by encounters with plesiadapiforms, perissodactyls, Gomphoteria, and like sesquipedalia. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10.5-by-15.6-inch double-page spreads viewed at 77% of actual size.)
Readers with a less-than-burning interest may struggle…or find that interest kindled by the end. (partial glossary, index) (Informational picture book. 10-12)Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4578-3
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
Readers hoping for alternatives to the dominant narratives will not find them here.
Factoids about various “races” across time.
Across 46 double-page spreads, readers learn about international “races” that cover a range of topics, from actual contests such as the Olympic Games and the Tour de France to general firsts, such as to the top of Mount Everest and to discover radiation. Along the way, facts and information are dolloped out in small paragraphs that stimulate and tease readers’ interest. Sadly, the teasing happens too frequently, and information is provided with little context or supplemental information. For example, readers learn that two forerunners to the bicycle were the draisine and the penny farthing. But the draisine looks like a modern bicycle without pedals while the penny farthing is a vastly different (and scarier-looking) conveyance. What prompted the design of the penny farthing? The Eurocentric focus of the book is a significantly larger flaw, as White faces and White achievements dominate the facts and illustrations. Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay is appropriately given equal visual and textual focus to Edmund Hillary, a White New Zealander, but Japanese climber Junko Tabei, the first woman to summit Everest, is depicted fully covered behind snow goggles and oxygen mask in a far corner of the page. Likewise, the information about Africa focuses textually and visually on David Livingstone, and the only Indigenous Africans depicted are early Homo sapiens dressed in stereotypical animal furs. Figures highlighted in the science section include Charles Darwin, Marie Curie, Isaac Newton—it’s the same old, same old. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10.8-by-19.2-inch double-page spreads viewed at 81% of actual size.)
Readers hoping for alternatives to the dominant narratives will not find them here. (index) (Nonfiction. 10-12)Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7112-5668-2
Page Count: 96
Publisher: QEB Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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