Let's go traveling

Presents a trip to the prehistoric caves of France, the pyramids of Egypt, the Maya temples of Mexico, and other ancient wonders of the world.

Grade 3-5-- Rachel Rose embarks on an exciting tour of ancient lands, armed with her camera, diary, and lots of postcards. Her journey begins at some prehistoric caves in France; then, she's on to Stonehenge and Avebury in England. No worldwide trip is complete without seeing the pyramids in Egypt, China's Great Wall, the Mayan temples in Mexico, and Machu Picchu in the Peruvian Andes. Krupp presents interesting, informative tidbits about each site, and readers learn even more through collages of Rose's diary entries, word lists, photographs, postcards home, and hand-drawn maps of each location. The busy, but intriguing, format is similar to that in Joanna Cole's ``Magic Schoolbus'' series (Scholastic). The mixture of styles and media through the use of photographs, cartoon drawings, and watercolor and tempera depictions lends a lighthearted touch to the smooth-flowing text. Some photographs are grainy, but that does not detract from the overall interest they generate. Let's Go Traveling draws readers into a fun-filled, guided tour of the world's ancient wonders and will produce, if not travelers, informed dreamers, at least!-- Mary Lou Budd, Milford S. Elem . School, OH
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In this ambitious--perhaps overly so--undertaking, Krupp ( The Comet and You ) takes readers on a jaunt to six prehistoric sites on four continents. The visually engaging, scrapbook-like pages of this variation on the Magic School Bus excursions feature tinted photographs, buttons, pages from a diary, facts and definitions,stet comma and other items from each destination. A narrator, freckled Rachel Rose, ties the journey together with excited but somewhat confining comments, as in this description: "Except for a stone coffin, it is just a large and empty room. The walls, the floor, the ceiling--everything is stone. We're inside the Great Pyramid. We can't believe we're here!" (Here Krupp encounters a problem inherent in travel books for the younger set: How can an author tell about a place and not shape the reader's response to it?) Also, these trips are occasionally confusing: are they real or imagined? Exactly who are the travelers? Still, much information can be gleaned from the varied art, which would-be globetrotters may well prefer to the stay-at-home text. Ages 7-10.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.