A fresh gander at the beginnings of dino-mania.
Colleagues become bitter rivals in this tale of scientific discovery set during paleontology’s heady early days.
Rightly judging that Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh would be less remembered for their achievements than their feud, Noyes highlights the latter, which resulted in a vicious “Scientific Smackdown” rabid enough to become a public spectacle. She sets it amid a wide-angled account of how rich fossil discoveries in the 19th century, particularly in the American West, fueled sometimes-unscrupulous races to find more even as natural science was undergoing some revolutionary growing pains. With liberal use of period illustrations and side essays, she tells a tale in which Buffalo Bill Cody and Red Cloud figure as prominently as Mary Anning and Charles Darwin, featuring Indiana Jones–style expeditions into rugged country at a time when the buffalo still roamed (if not for long) and the Battle of Little Bighorn was fresh news. Young readers interested in the intrepid exploits of the early fossil hunters have plenty of choices, from Kathryn Lasky’s Bone Wars (1988) on, but it’s a grand yarn nonetheless and, in this iteration, offers illuminating sidelights and updated lists of print and web resources.
A fresh gander at the beginnings of dino-mania. (index, timeline, endnotes) (Nonfiction. 10-13)Pub Date: April 30, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-425-28984-6
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Logically pointing out that the American cowboy archetype didn’t spring up from nowhere, Sandler, author of Cowboys (1994) and other volumes in the superficial, if luxuriously illustrated, “Library of Congress Book” series, looks back over 400 years of cattle tending in North America. His coverage ranges from the livestock carried on Columbus’s second voyage to today’s herding-by-helicopter operations. Here, too, the generous array of dramatic early prints, paintings, and photos are more likely to capture readers’ imaginations than the generality-ridden text. But among his vague comments about the characters, values, and culture passed by Mexican vaqueros to later arrivals from the Eastern US, Sadler intersperses nods to the gauchos, llaneros, and other South American “cowmen,” plus the paniolos of Hawaii, and the renowned African-American cowboys. He also decries the role film and popular literature have played in suppressing the vaqueros’ place in the history of the American West. He tackles an uncommon topic, and will broaden the historical perspective of many young cowboy fans, but his glance at modern vaqueros seems to stop at this country’s borders. Young readers will get a far more detailed, vivid picture of vaquero life and work from the cowboy classics in his annotated bibliography. (Notes, glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2001
ISBN: 0-8050-6019-7
Page Count: 116
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2000
An introduction to ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs buried in the Valley of the Kings. The authors begin with how archaeologist Howard Carter found the tomb of King Tut, then move back 3,000 years to the time of Thutmosis I, who built the first tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Finally they describe the building of the tomb of a later Pharaoh, Ramses II. The backward-forward narration is not always easy to follow, and the authors attribute emotions to the Pharaohs without citation. For example, “Thutmosis III was furious [with Hatshepsut]. He was especially annoyed that she planned to be buried in KV 20, the tomb of her father.” Since both these people lived 3,500 years ago, speculation on who was furious or annoyed should be used with extreme caution. And the tangled intrigue of Egyptian royalty is not easily sorted out in so brief a work. Throughout, though, there are spectacular photographs of ancient Egyptian artifacts, monuments, tomb paintings, jewels, and death masks that will appeal to young viewers. The photographs of the exposed mummies of Ramses II, King Tut, and Seti I are compelling. More useful for the hauntingly beautiful photos than the text. (brief bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7922-7223-4
Page Count: 64
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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