Exploration & Discoveries Books

Encounter

Jane Yolen

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Useful and effective for certain goals 1 out of 5 stars.
8 of 15 people found this review helpful.

This children's book offers several very clear lessons:

1. When you see people with a different skin color, especially people that dress and speak differently, it's OK to mock and ridicule them, because they're not quite human and probably won't understand anyway. It's like making fun of a dog. If you see someone with lighter skin than your own, check to see if they have a tail.

2. It's not enough to make fun of those that are different, however. It is extremely important to drive the sub-humans away by whatever means necessary. Treating them as true humans will only lead you to become less than "truly human" yourself.

3. You should judge people by their skin color, not by their actions. Focus purely on their skin color, language and how they dress, plus any dreams you may have had about them.

Let me be clear - I agree that what was done to native Americans was wrong. If this book taught about that, I would gladly buy it for my children. But this book does NOT argue that the white-skinned sub-humans should have been judged by their actions, or that all people have basic, fundamental rights that should be respected.

The boy in the story is condemning the Spanish based purely on the fact that their skin, clothing and language are different, and argues that they should be driven away for that reason alone (well, plus the boy had a bad dream!). As an old man, he says that his own people are no longer 'true humans', not because of slavery but because they have begun to speak and dress like the sub-humans. People should be judged by their appearance, and those that are different should be exiled to prevent contamination.

The book is beautifully illustrated and written in a way that will be attractive to children. If you're trying to teach your children to be more racist, this book will be a useful and effective tool.

Editorial Review:

When Christopher Columbus landed on the island of San Salvador in 1492, what he discovered were the Taino Indians. Told from a young Taino boy’s point of view, this is a story of how the boy tried to warn his people against welcoming the strangers, who seemed more interested in golden ornaments than friendship. Years later the boy, now an old man, looks back at the destruction of his people and their culture by the colonizers.

The Sea of Trolls

Nancy Farmer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 98 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Fantasy Masterpiece 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

An amazing, wonderful book. In the beginning it's hard to get caught up in it, but once you do, you are incredibly caught up in it! The story, though obviously fantasy in some parts (Trolls, dragons, and eight-legged frost horses anyone?), is very believable and well-written. You fall in love with Jack, Thorgil, and Olaf, and feel (and agree with) Jack's every opinion and emotion.

Editorial Review:

Jack was eleven when the berserkers loomed out of the fog and nabbed him. "It seems that things are stirring across the water," the Bard had warned. "Ships are being built, swords are being forged."

"Is that bad?" Jack had asked, for his Saxon village had never before seen berserkers.

"Of course. People don't make ships and swords unless they intend to use them."

The year is A.D. 793. In the next months, Jack and his little sister, Lucy, are enslaved by Olaf One-Brow and his fierce young shipmate, Thorgil. With a crow named Bold Heart for mysterious company, they are swept up into an adventure-quest in the spirit of The Lord of the Rings.

Award-winner Nancy Farmer has never told a richer, funnier tale, nor offered more timeless encouragement to young seekers than "Just say no to pillaging."

Call It Courage

Armstrong Sperry

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 92 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

CALL IT COURAGE 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 5 people found this review helpful.

This book, which was first copyrighted in 1940, is still a good coming-of-age adventure, except for ONE BIG PROBLEM: racist imagery. The people the young South Seas islander hero must outwit and outrun in order to return to his homeland are terrifying "blacks," "savages," "eaters-of-men." This stereotyped characterization might have been acceptable to some in 1940, but society has since come to realize the harm it can cause to Black children's self-image and other children's attitudes toward Black people. To ethically introduce this book to a child requires either blacking out offending words (!) or prefacing and interspersing the reading with lessons in sociology and history, and even then, there's no assurance that damage won't be done. Why take the chance when there are so many other good books out there?
Newberry-awarded books engender such trust. Isn't it time for the Newberry folks to reconsider their wisdom in granting this racist book a medal?

Editorial Review:

Mafatu has been afraid of the sea for as long as he can remember. Though his father is the Great Chief of Hikueru - an island whose seafaring people worship courage - Mafatu feels like an outsider. All his life he has been teased, taunted, and even blamed for storms on the sea.

Then at age fifteen, no longer willing to put up with the ridicule and jibes, Mafatu decides to take his fate into his own hands. With his dog, Uri, as his companion, Mafatu paddles out to sea, ready to face his fears. What he learns on his lonesome adventure will change him forever and make him a hero in the eyes of his people.

The Egyptology Handbook: A Course in the Wonders of Egypt (Ologies)

Emily Sands

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Inside this indispensable and beautifully illustrated workbook is everything you need to know to become an esteemed Egyptologist.

As readers of the fascinating EGYPTOLOGY are all too aware, the feisty explorer Emily Sands mysteriously vanished on an expedition up the Nile in 1927. But in a remarkable turn of fortune for Miss Sands's many fans, detectives have uncovered a second volume penned in her own hand — a course book on ancient Egyptian history and culture intended for the voyager's beloved niece and nephew. Now available to budding Egyptologists everywhere, this comprehensive volume — illustrated by the same artists who lent their talents to EGYPTOLOGY — is brimming with facts on ancient Egyptian culture and history, followed by intriguing assignments and fill-in opportunities on everything from archaeological finds to theories on how the pyramids were built.

Among the book's delightful novelty elements are:

— An envelope containing Miss Emily Sands's Top Ten Things to See in Egypt
— Flaps to lift, revealing hidden treasure in desert sands
— A four-page foldout section full of stickers featuring treasures from King Tut's tomb and other ancient Egyptian artifacts.

Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

CullensAbcs.com Review of Dinosaurs Dinosaurs 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R285V63257WHVK Cullen [...] reviews this book and gives you ideas on how to use to use it interactively with your child. For you I have more video book reviews, free children videos and free activity idea videos at the [...] website. If you have a children's book you would like me to review and offer ideas on how to use it interactively with children [...]. Also, feel free to to add me, Cullen Wood, as a Facebook friend.

Editorial Review:

A long time ago there were dinosaurs. Big dinosaurs and small dinosaurs. Dinosaurs with horns on their heads or spikes down their backs. Dinosaurs with long, long necks and long, long tails.

Imaginatively and with a masterful use of color, shape and composition, Bryon Barton brings to life a unique and endearing vision of what the world may have looked like once upon a time.

A long time ago there was dinosaurs. Big dinosaurs and small dinosaurs. Dinosaurs with horns on their heads or spikes down their backs. Dinosaurs with long, long necks and long, long tails.
Imaginatively and with a masterful use of color, shape and composition, Byron Barton brings to life unique and endearing vision of what the world may have looked like once upona time.

Outstanding Science Trade Books for Children 1989 (NSTA/CBC)
Science Books and Films -- Editor's Choice
Science Books and Films -- Best Children's Science Book List

Weedflower

Cynthia Kadohata

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Twelve-year-old Sumiko feels her life has been made up of two parts: before Pearl Harbor and after it. The good part and the bad part. Raised on a flower farm in California, Sumiko is used to being the only Japanese girl in her class. Even when the other kids tease her, she always has had her flowers and family to go home to.
Now, other Americans start to suspect that all Japanese people are spies for the emperor and Sumiko and her family find themselves being shipped to an internment camp in one of the hottest deserts in the United States. The vivid color of her previous life is gone forever, and now dust storms regularly choke the sky and seep into every crack of the military barrack that is her new “home.”
Sumiko soon discovers that the camp is on an Indian reservation and that the Japanese are as unwanted there as they’d been at home. But then she meets a young Mohave boy who might just become her first real friend….
With searing insight and clarity, Newbery Medal—winning author Cynthia Kadohata explores an important and painful topic through the eyes of a young girl who yearns to belong. Weedflower is the story of the rewards and challenges of a friendship across the racial divide, as well as the based-on-real-life story of how the meeting of Japanese Americans and Native Americans changed the future of both.

Tamar: A Novel of Espionage, Passion, and Betrayal

Mal Peet

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 15 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

War, Love, Lies, and Spies! 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

::ABOUT::
1/2 the novel takes place during WW2 in Holland, the other have takes place in present time London. The basis is a 15yr old girl trying to reconstruct her grandfathers life. He left her behind a box filled with clues/relics of the war. She goes on a road trip down the Tamar river, which she is named after, searching for the meaning of it all. Meanwhile the book is moving through the grandfathers station in the war and the trials and tribulations of the Holland resistance.
::REVIEW::
This book can be slow and confusing but it does all come together. I think a quickening of pace and more excitement would have much improved the novel. I do like the WW2 Europe time-frame, it's such a great emotion filled era and has been the backdrop to many great movies & novels. Perhaps as a movie, it would be even better. I liked that you did feel like you learned things in the novel, and came away from the book with yet another view of the war and the difficulties of that time. Recommended ages 16 and up.

Editorial Review:

From acclaimed British sensation Mal Peet comes a masterful story of adventure, love, secrets, and betrayal in time of war, both past and present.

When her grandfather dies, Tamar inherits a box containing a series of clues and coded messages. Out of the past, another Tamar emerges, a man involved in the terrifying world of resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Holland half a century before. His story is one of passionate love, jealousy, and tragedy set against the daily fear and casual horror of the Second World War — and unraveling it is about to transform Tamar’s life forever.

Moonwalk: The First Trip to the Moon (Step-Into-Reading, Step 5)

Judy Donnelly

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

From a third grade reader in Goodyear, AZ, May 18th, 2000. 5 out of 5 stars.
9 of 9 people found this review helpful.

Moonwalk, The First Trip to the Moon, by Judy Donnelly and Dennis Davidson, was based on the United States Space Program in it's attempt to out do the Russian program. The U. S. wanted to put 2 men on the moon and after numerous tries and a few fatalities the U. S. Space Program succeeded. Apollo 11 was the first rocket to land on the moon. I found this book very exciting. I learned much about how the space program worked and what it took to get to the moon and back again safely. I encourage other young readers to read Moonwalk. It will inspire many readers as it did me to study more about the future of space travel and our space program.

Editorial Review:

Illus. in full color & full-color photos. "The story of Apollo II's historic flight, from lift-off, through 'The Eagle has landed,' to splashdown and quarantine. Donnelly does a good job of setting the stage with chapters on the history of the idea of flight to the moon, astronaut selection and training, and look at the flight's effect on people in general."--School Library Journal.  

Lewis and Clark: A Prairie Dog for the President (Step into Reading, Step 3)

Shirley Raye Redmond

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A Fun and Funny Reader 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

Lewis and Clark, A Prairie Dog for the President, is a fun read that's nicely paced. Author Shirley Raye Redmond uses whimsy and humor to tell this historic event: President Jefferson sends the eager Lewis and Clark off to explore the West. The vast young nation has never been fully explored. The president wonders how long it will take to get to the end of it and what they will find. One of my favorite parts is the banter over what to name the barking prairie creature they discover and send back to Jefferson.
"You can call it a ground rat."
"No, it looks like squirrel. I'll call it a barking squirrel."
"Squirrels don't bark. Dogs bark. We should call it a prairie dog."
"That's it!" Lewis and Clark agreed.
Later it starts all over again, when the President asks, "Is it a gopher?"
The illustrations by John Manders are just as pleasing. I like the facial expressions on the people and animals, especially the mischievous smile of the prairie dog. Manders is skilled at portraying action and emotions. And like the author, his sense of humor is so much fun. A buffalo and bear pose to be sketched. A buffalo won't fit in a shipping crate. Prairie dogs pop in and out of holes, eluding capture. A poor scout is so weighed down with "presents" for the President, he must be hoisted onto a boat.
Together, Shirley Raye Redmond and John Manders have created a delightful book.

Editorial Review:

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson sends Lewis and Clark out west to explore. He tells them to make maps. He tells them to draw pictures and collect plants. Most importantly, he tells them to send presents! What kind of present is good enough for a president? Beginning readers will truly enjoy reading about this fun and little-known slice of American history.

The Call of the Wild and White Fang (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (Barnes & Noble Classics)

Jack London

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Call of the Wild and White Fang, by Jack London, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:

New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars Biographies of the authors Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events Footnotes and endnotes Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work Comments by other famous authors Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations Bibliographies for further reading Indices & Glossaries, when appropriateAll editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.

 

Jack London’s two greatest novels, The Call of the Wild and White Fang—originally intended as companions—are here compiled in one volume. The Call of the Wild centers on a domesticated dog, Buck, who is kidnapped and sold to Klondike gold hunters. To survive Buck must listen to the Call and learn the ways of his wolf-ancestors, who guide him from within.

White Fang tells the story of a half-wolf, half-dog nearly destroyed by the vicious cruelty of men. Brought to the very brink of his existence, White Fang is lucky enough to experience the one thing that can save him—human love.

Adventurer and activist, philosopher and alcoholic, Jack London was a man of great contradictions and greater talent. Both of these novels are written in a simple, direct, and powerful style that decades of readers have admired and that writers have imitated.

 

Tina Gianquitto holds a Ph.D. in American Literature from Columbia University and currently teaches at The College of the Mines in Colorado.