This strikingly illustrated book takes its readers on a series of research voyages exploring the ocean from its shallow edges to unfathomable depths during the recently completed ten-year International Census of Marine Life. Clearly organized text and pictures combine to introduce newly discovered marine creatures of all kinds: the Big Red jellyfish, with a bell the size of a door; mussels surrounding deep brine pools and feeding on methane-eating bacteria; zombie worms on a whale skeleton. Readers are invited to imagine diving in open water, exploring continental slopes inside a submersible vehicle, sorting through muck from the ocean bottom and sitting in a shipboard control structure watching displays from a remotely operated underwater vehicle. The excitement and challenge of discovery is tangible. Scientific photographs printed on blue-to-black background (darkening as the text descends into the depths) illustrate animals mentioned in a nicely legible text, mostly printed in white. There are clear captions, quotations from involved scientists and sidebars explaining important concepts like bioluminescence and chemosynthesis. Diagrams indicate where the voyage takes place. Rich, revealing and rewarding. (glossary, source notes, selected bibliography, suggestions for further learning, index, acknowledgements) (Nonfiction. 8-14)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7613-4148-2
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Millbrook
Review Posted Online: Aug. 31, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
A serviceable introduction both to this CSI-related field and to the relevant human anatomy.
How does science work to identify corpses of the unknown?
Murray’s compact, textbook look at the basics of forensic anthropology provides comprehensible introductions to individually unique anatomical and physiological characteristics and to the timetable for the decay or decomposition of each. Eight “case files” are presented to provide a story to illustrate the techniques of post-mortem identification in practical contexts and to provide human interest to accompany the straightforward text. Unsurprisingly gruesome, each involves the discovery of a body (or in one, the separate limbs and severed head of a young woman) of an unknown person whose identification is challenged by decomposition. Three main chapters look at current forensic technology from the outside in—the first describes skin, hair, scars, tattoos, fingerprints and their reconstruction, while the second provides a look at how bones, teeth and implants provide structural identification. Murray describes the gold standard of identification—nuclear DNA profiling—in the last chapter with satisfyingly clear instruction in the essential features of forensic DNA. About 20 percent of the text is printed in white on a dark background, including all of the case-file narratives. File photos are used throughout to illustrate the points being made.
A serviceable introduction both to this CSI-related field and to the relevant human anatomy. (index, bibliography, sources for more information) (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-7613-6696-6
Page Count: 72
Publisher: Twenty-First Century/Lerner
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
More story than study, the book provides an accessible introduction to Goodall’s, Fossey’s and Galdikas’ lives and work.
Veteran science writer Ottaviani (Feynman, 2011, etc.) teams up with illustration newcomer Wicks in this semifictionalized overview of the “Trimates,” three women primatologists championed by Louis Leakey.
The book opens with Goodall’s cozy first-person account of her childhood dreams of studying animals in Africa, her recruitment by Leakey, the establishment of her long-term chimpanzee study in Nigeria and her key discoveries regarding chimpanzee behavior. The narrative then shifts from Goodall to Leakey’s other protégées, Fossey and Galdikas, and their influential research on, respectively, gorillas and orangutans. Fossey and Galdikas also tell their own tales in distinct, often funny, voices. Wicks’ cheerful drawings complement the women’s stories by highlighting their humorous moments. However, the simplicity of Wicks’ rounded figures and flat backgrounds make the panels documenting primate behavior less effective than they could be. Another weakness is the text’s tendency to summarize when more scientific and biographical detail would be welcome. For example, the final chapter covers the later stages of the Trimates’ careers but only briefly addresses the circumstances surrounding Fossey’s death. Readers looking for more substantial biographies or science should seek out other sources after whetting their appetites here.
More story than study, the book provides an accessible introduction to Goodall’s, Fossey’s and Galdikas’ lives and work. (afterword, bibliography) (Graphic novel. 10-14)Pub Date: June 11, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-59643-865-1
Page Count: 144
Publisher: First Second/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: March 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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