A crack primer to a strange new world.
A thorough introduction to the ever evolving world of 3-D printing.
Though it is difficult not to be shocked and awed by the capabilities of today’s 3-D printers, Koch doesn’t affect a gaga tone. She keeps a steady pace and lets the subject wow for itself. Readers learn that 3-D printing, though still in its infancy, holds the promise to make medical, fashion, industrial, what-have-you innovations that will change our world in fundamental ways. Koch starts the whole business off by comparing her subject to a mud dauber wasp that uses a variety of materials instead of wood pulp and saliva—and those materials can now be combined to make a range of items from human tissue to flavored sweets, from teeth to 3-D printers that make other 3-D printers. A good selection of engineers and inventors, both men and women, are given pleasingly anecdotal profiles, and Koch lays down some fundamentals that may not occur to readers, such as the fact that each printer is designed to do one job and that job only. The book’s layout can get somewhat hectic, with boxes, separate spreads, or abrupt color shifts signaling particular information for emphasis. Occasionally Koch will leave readers stranded—just how, for instance, do archaeologists study digs by using 3-D printers “in a way that will not damage or destroy [artifacts and sites]”? Otherwise, the writing is smart and engaging.
A crack primer to a strange new world. (Nonfiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5124-1570-4
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Twenty-First Century/Lerner
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
While this book does not serve as an introduction to Darwin’s life and ideas, readers wanting to know more will discover two...
This rich, insightful portrait of Charles and Emma Darwin’s marriage explores a dimension of the naturalist’s life that has heretofore been largely ignored.
Emma was devoutly religious while Charles’s agnosticism increased as he delved deeper into his studies of natural history, but they did not let this difference come between them. While unable to agree with Charles’s theory that essentially eliminated God from the process of creation, Emma remained open-minded and supportive, even reading drafts of The Origin of Species and suggesting improvements. Using excerpts from correspondence, diaries and journals, Heiligman portrays a relationship grounded in mutual respect. The narrative conveys a vivid sense of what life was like in Victorian England, particularly the high infant mortality rate that marred the Darwins’ happiness and the challenges Charles faced in deciding to publish his controversial theory.
While this book does not serve as an introduction to Darwin’s life and ideas, readers wanting to know more will discover two brilliant thinkers whose marital dialectic will provide rich fodder for discussions of science and faith. (introduction, source notes, bibliography, index) (Biography. 12 & up)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8050-8721-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2008
From 1600 to the 1800s, sugar drove the economies of Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa and did more “to reshape the world than any ruler, empire, or war had ever done.” Millions of people were taken from Africa and enslaved to work the sugar plantations throughout the Caribbean, worked to death to supply the demand for sugar in Europe. Aronson and Budhos make a case for Africans as not just victims but “true global citizens….the heralds of [our] interconnected world,” and they explain how, ironically, the Age of Sugar became the Age of Freedom. Maps, photographs and archival illustrations, all with captions that are informative in their own right, richly complement the text, and superb documentation and an essay addressed to teachers round out the fascinating volume. Covering 10,000 years of history and ranging the world, the story is made personal by the authors’ own family stories, their passion for the subject and their conviction that young people are up to the challenge of complex, well-written narrative history. (timelines, Web guide to color images, acknowledgments, notes and sources, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 12 & up)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-618-57492-6
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2010
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