SENSE OF DIRECTION: Up and Down and All Around

Ms. Cobb applies an historical approach to the use of the sun, stars and compass for finding direction and of other devices for measuring distance (counters on wagon wheels) and speed (how the term ""knot"" arose) and mixes it with an emphasis on ""finding your way around"" and some tips on how to do it (noting landmarks or locating the North Star). This once-over very lightly is no substitute for a Boy Scout manual but as a low-pressure lesson in the need for standardization it might serve to introduce a school unit. Similarly the chapters on maps and globes (covering map symbols, reading a road map, longitude and latitude), with their rather chatty tone and jaunty pictures, might be more palatable than the usual textbook treatment of the same material. But the book is more promising as a teaching tool for stimulating awareness of the subject than impressive for the information it conveys.