Often regarded as the inspiration behind Indiana Jones, renowned dinosaur hunter Andrews marks an apt change of pace for Marrin, best known for rousing accounts of wars and generals. Working for New York’s American Museum of Natural History, Andrews first made his name collecting whales just before the WWI, then went on to organize an epochal series of expeditions into Mongolia, searching for—and finding in profusion—the remains of prehistoric creatures. Indulging in his fondness for lurid, attention-grabbing anecdotes, the author tucks a beheading, some gunplay, and a meal featuring boiled sheep’s eyes into his account of Andrew’s adventures, discoveries, family life, and opinions on various topics from hunting to women. Contemporary photos capture the rugged conditions under which Andrews and his companions labored, as well as some of their revolutionary findings; back matter includes a perfunctory list of books and Web sites. Andrew’s life does make a grand tale, though as it’s just been told with similar flourish for the same audience in Bausum’s and Andrews’s more heavily illustrated Dragon Bones and Dinosaur Eggs: A Photobiography of Explorer Roy Chapman Andrews (2000), this rendition is more an alternative than a must-buy. (Biography. 10-13)
Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-525-46743-2
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2002
In this abridged and illustrated version of his Short History of Nearly Everything (2003), Bryson invites a younger crowd of seekers on a tour of time, space and science—from the Big Bang and the birth of the solar system to the growth and study of life on Earth. The single-topic spreads are adorned with cartoon portraits of scientists, explorers and (frequently) the author himself, which go with small nature photos and the occasional chart or cutaway view. Though occasionally subject to sweeping and dubious statements—“There’s no chance we could ever make a journey through the solar system”—Bryson makes a genial guide (“for you to be here now, trillions of drifting atoms had somehow to come together in a complicated and obliging manner to create you”), and readers with even a flicker of curiosity in their souls about Big Ideas will come away sharing his wonder at living in such a “fickle and eventful universe.” (index) (Nonfiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-385-73810-1
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2009
Remarking that ``nothing about the weather is very simple,'' Simon goes on to describe how the sun, atmosphere, earth's rotation, ground cover, altitude, pollution, and other factors influence it; briefly, he also tells how weather balloons gather information. Even for this outstanding author, it's a tough, complex topic, and he's not entirely successful in simplifying it; moreover, the import of the striking uncaptioned color photos here isn't always clear. One passage—``Cumulus clouds sometimes build up into towering masses called cumulus congestus, or swelling cumulus, which may turn into cumulonimbus clouds''—is superimposed on a blue-gray, cloud-covered landscape. But which kind of clouds are these? Another photo, in blue-black and white, shows what might be precipitation in the upper atmosphere, or rain falling on a darkened landscape, or...? Generally competent and certainly attractive, but not Simon's best. (Nonfiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-688-10546-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1993
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