Explor-A-Maze - Softcover

Snedden, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0761302875 ISBN 13: 9780761302872

Publisher: Millbrook Pr, 1997

Synopsis

Text, maps, and mazes follow the journeys of ten explorers, including Leif Erikson, Marco Polo, Vasco da Gama, David Livingstone, and Neil Armstrong and "Buzz" Aldrin

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

0-7613-0266-2 From ship to shore, readers follow maps and mazes to trace the routes of an array of famous explorers--Buzz Aldrin, Roald Amundsen, Neil Armstrong, Leif Eriksson, Vasco da Gama, and Marco Polo among them. Lands to settle and goods to trade spark the impetus for ten chronological journeys of discovery across a millennium; two spreads are devoted to each explorer, introduced with an interactive maze activity that parallels the idea of the unknown, uncharted territory, complete with obstacles hindering the traveler. Readers must navigate sea monsters and treacherous rocks in the time of Ferdinand Magellan, collect plant specimens for Captain James Cook, and avoid angry natives and coral reefs en route with Christopher Columbus. A flip of the page presents a brief capsule of the explorer's historic route in a series of numbered paragraphs that correspond with points on the map, including an answer key specific to each maze. Bright, eye-catching illustrations feature sea-faring themes as well as indigenous flora and fauna. The glib, oversimplified approach (Eriksson was banished from Norway for ``killing someone,'' and ``also thrown out of'' Iceland) makes this less useful for in-depth research and report writing, but attractive to armchair explorers. (Nonfiction. 8-12) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Grade 3-5?Using Highlights-style puzzles as a hook, Snedden introduces 10 famous explorers, chronologically arranged, beginning with Leif Eriksson and ending with the Apollo 11 crew. Each heavily illustrated, four-page chapter begins with a double-page spread containing a brief biographical sketch and a maze. Another spread presents a map of the explorer's route accompanied by numbered paragraphs that explain each step of the journey, as well as the solution to the maze. One problem?apart from the obvious one that, as a circulating library book, Explor-a-Maze will be returned "solved" by eager elementary puzzlers?is that the colorful puzzles are on a second-grade level, while the text is closer to a fifth-grade level. Containing inconsequential mazes, simplistic and occasionally speculative text, and reasonably descriptive maps, this is a busy book best used as supplemental material in a social-science curriculum.?John Sigwald, Unger Memorial Library, Plainview, TX
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Millbrook Pr
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0761302875
• ISBN 13: 9780761302872
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 40
• Illustrator: Oliver Tim