Scholastic Atlas of Exploration - Hardcover

Grade 4-6-This British import offers middle graders one more resource on Western explorers. Starkey does include short profiles of non-Westerners such as Ibn Battuta and Cheng Ho and takes a politically correct posture in the introduction: "Today, we still admire the bravery of early explorers, but we also know they often acted cruelly. In their ignorance, they sometimes destroyed the people, cultures, and places they 'discovered'." However, the format of this book remains traditional, with a heavy emphasis on Renaissance world exploration and without clear explanations of colonialism or the profit motive. The book is, overall, visually appealing, especially the maps showing explorers' routes. Some of the inset illustrations, though (both maps and drawings), are too small to be entertaining or informative. This volume is easier to read but contains less information than W.D. Towson's Illustrated Atlas of the World in the Age of Discovery (Warwick, 1981; o.p.) and Keith Lye's Explorers (Silver, 1983; o.p.). Strictly additional.
Kellie Flynn, St. Teresa High School, Decatur, IL
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 3-5. First published in England, this informative atlas broadly covers the subject of explo-

ration, including such topics as the ancient Greeks; the Vikings; Marco Polo; the European explorers of the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Poles; and the ongoing exploration of the ocean and of space. Though the coverage is necessarily brief, each double-page spread includes a colorful, original map and information about the explorers, the places they found, and the people who lived there. Boxes of text, small photographs of artifacts, reproductions of period paintings and engravings, and drawings of ships, supplies, and people appear around the centrally placed maps, making the pages lively though crowded. Useful supplementary material for classroom units on exploration. Carolyn Phelan