Persuasive, if distinctly rushed and slanted more toward economic than cultural history.
Condensed from an adult series, a big-picture overview of how geography has influenced the development of modern nations and international trade.
Marshall’s fat Prisoners of Geography (2015) and select chapters (on Australia and Canada) from his upcoming Power of Geography (Nov. 2021) have been transformed into a dozen large infographic maps with follow-up commentary. It’s all designed to highlight the roles geophysical features, or the lack thereof, have played in shaping trade and politics. Readers will find both broad-brush accounts of historical incidents and themes and closer looks at cases in point. The point, for instance, that ignoring natural borders to lay out arbitrarily drawn ones (like those created in the Middle East after World War I) inevitably leads to long-term states of conflict is convincingly made. The maps themselves, many designed to demonstrate a specific point, are a patchy mix of single countries, whole continents, and general regions like Latin America (depicted as Mexico to Cape Horn). Some visuals, such as an outline of Africa with silhouettes of the U.S., China, and several other large countries fitted within like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, will make a larger impression on young viewers than, for instance, a schematic map of Europe festooned with pie charts showing the percentage of natural gas select countries import from Russia. Human figures are rare, generic, and used largely as decorative elements. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Persuasive, if distinctly rushed and slanted more toward economic than cultural history. (Informational picture book. 8-11)Pub Date: Oct. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-61519-847-4
Page Count: 80
Publisher: The Experiment
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
Bial (A Handful of Dirt, p. 299, etc.) conjures up ghostly images of the Wild West with atmospheric photos of weathered clapboard and a tally of evocative names: Tombstone, Deadwood, Goldfield, Progress, Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickock, the OK Corral. Tracing the life cycle of the estimated 30,000 ghost towns (nearly 1300 in Utah alone), he captures some echo of their bustling, rough-and-tumble past with passages from contemporary observers like Mark Twain: “If a man wanted a fight on his hands without any annoying delay, all he had to do was appear in public in a white shirt or stove-pipe hat, and he would be accommodated.” Among shots of run-down mining works, dusty, deserted streets, and dark eaves silhouetted against evening skies, Bial intersperses 19th-century photos and prints for contrast, plus an occasional portrait of a grizzled modern resident. He suggests another sort of resident too: “At night that plaintive hoo-hoo may be an owl nesting in a nearby saguaro cactus—or the moaning of a restless ghost up in the graveyard.” Children seeking a sense of this partly mythic time and place in American history, or just a delicious shiver, will linger over his tribute. (bibliography) (Nonfiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-618-06557-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
Thousands of years ago, the Komodo dragon may have inspired dragon legends in China and beyond. In more recent times, researchers from all over the world have traveled to the Lesser Sunda Islands of Indonesia to study the Komodo dragon. This lively if somewhat haphazardly organized account focuses on the efforts of contemporary researchers, presents some of their cooler findings (female dragons can reproduce through parthenogenesis; their saliva is laced with deadly bacteria) and profiles a few captive specimens. Mostly color photographs from a variety of sources adorn almost every page, and captions add to the information. Learning about the Komodo dragon is not for the faint of heart, and the photos show the wild beasts in all their gory glory. The extensive backmatter includes brief facts about Indonesia, more information on the Komodo dragon life cycle and its use of smell and conservation information. A portion of the sales will be donated to the Komodo Survival Program. (bibliography, further reading, glossary, websites, index, author’s note) (Nonfiction. 9-11)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-59078-757-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Boyds Mills
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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