by Simon Winchester ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 31, 2017
Stormy weather elegantly explained.
Hurricanes, typhoons, and tornadoes bring disaster around the world.
In a companion to When the Earth Shakes (2016), journalist-turned-author Winchester explains these destructive weather events in pleasingly polished prose. A short introduction documents his increasing personal fascination with weather phenomena. “The Biggest, Baddest Weather,” the first and longest chapter, describes ocean-fueled superstorms using examples both familiar and unfamiliar to his American readers and weaving in explanations of formation, behavior, and prediction. He demonstrates that the effects of hurricanelike storms can be measured through human lives lost, property destroyed, economic cost, and, physically, through wind speed and minimum air pressures. He shows his readers how El Niño and the Southern Ocillation affect the weather all over the world. In “America’s National Storm” he turns his attention to tornadoes, demonstrating the geographical reasons for their prevalence in the central part of this country and describing ways some Native American peoples historically dealt with these events. In conclusion, he discusses climate changes and posits his hope that the Pacific Ocean can help ameliorate the worst effects of global warming. Each section is introduced with a stunning photographic spread, and the text is broken up with clearly captioned photographs. The language may challenge some of his intended readers, but his subject is so compelling and the packaging so engaging, his audience will surely persevere.
Stormy weather elegantly explained. (recommended reading, acknowledgements, index) (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-451-47635-7
Page Count: 98
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2017
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by Simon Winchester & photographed by Nick Mann & developed by TouchPress
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by Simon Winchester & adapted by Dwight Jon Zimmerman
by Kathleen Krull & illustrated by Boris Kulikov ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2006
Hot on the heels of the well-received Leonardo da Vinci (2005) comes another agreeably chatty entry in the Giants of Science series. Here the pioneering physicist is revealed as undeniably brilliant, but also cantankerous, mean-spirited, paranoid and possibly depressive. Newton’s youth and annus mirabilis receive respectful treatment, the solitude enforced by family estrangement and then the plague seen as critical to the development of his thoughtful, methodical approach. His subsequent squabbles with the rest of the scientific community—he refrained from publishing one treatise until his rival was dead—further support the image of Newton as a scientific lone wolf. Krull’s colloquial treatment sketches Newton’s advances in clearly understandable terms without bogging the text down with detailed explanations. A final chapter on “His Impact” places him squarely in the pantheon of great thinkers, arguing that both his insistence on the scientific method and his theories of physics have informed all subsequent scientific thought. A bibliography, web site and index round out the volume; the lack of detail on the use of sources is regrettable in an otherwise solid offering for middle-grade students. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-05921-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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by Kathleen Krull & illustrated by Boris Kulikov
by Kathleen Krull & illustrated by Boris Kulikov
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by Kathleen Krull & Virginia Loh-Hagan ; illustrated by Aura Lewis
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by Kathleen Krull ; illustrated by Annie Bowler
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by Kathleen Krull & Paul Brewer ; illustrated by Boris Kulikov
by Amy Stewart ; illustrated by Briony Morrow-Cribbs ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 8, 2017
Entomophobes will find all of this horrifyingly informative.
This junior edition of Stewart’s lurid 2011 portrait gallery of the same name (though much less gleeful subtitle) loses none of its capacity for leaving readers squicked-out.
The author drops a few entries, notably the one on insect sexual practices, and rearranges toned-down versions of the rest into roughly topical sections. Beginning with the same cogent observation—“We are seriously outnumbered”—she follows general practice in thrillers of this ilk by defining “bug” broadly enough to include all-too-detailed descriptions of the life cycles and revolting or deadly effects of scorpions and spiders, ticks, lice, and, in a chapter evocatively titled “The Enemy Within,” such internal guests as guinea worms and tapeworms. Mosquitoes, bedbugs, the ubiquitous “Filth Fly,” and like usual suspects mingle with more-exotic threats, from the tongue-eating louse and a “yak-killer hornet” (just imagine) to the aggressive screw-worm fly that, in one cited case, flew up a man’s nose and laid hundreds of eggs…that…hatched. Morrow-Cribbs’ close-up full-color drawings don’t offer the visceral thrills of the photos in, for instance, Rebecca L. Johnson’s Zombie Makers (2012) but are accurate and finely detailed enough to please even the fussiest young entomologists.
Entomophobes will find all of this horrifyingly informative. (index, glossary, resource lists) (Nonfiction. 11-14)Pub Date: Aug. 8, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61620-755-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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