David C. King

Unfortunately, unlike its series companion about Einstein (by a different author) I can't recommend this book, even to its intended age group.

Most seriously, there are factual errors: Darwin was not the official naturalist aboard the Beagle. That role was taken by the ship's surgeon (as was often the case), who, jealous of Darwin, quit at the first opportunity and sailed home. (Fortunately FitzRoy was able to hire a new surgeon before continuing the voyage.)

Secondly, there are typographical problems that go beyond just the occasional spelling error into missed and repeated parts of sentences.

Thirdly, in a book that has separate, boxed definitions for such concepts as "geology", words like "ecosystem" go by without any explanation at all.

Not good, which is a shame, since Darwin and his science are so enormously important.… (más)

Currently I sponsor and am a pen pal with a young girl in Rwanda. I was interested in learning more about the place that she calls home. This book overall was pretty dense in its information load and length; however, the book was well organized so that I was able to read about the parts of the country that I was most interested in. This would provide students the opportunity to pull certain aspects from a book that they are looking for rather than reading it from cover to cover. I also really liked how at the end there were facts and maps of the country. This information was easily accessible to me as a reader. The photographs in the book were also very helpful. It is also important to consider when reading texts like this to consider the date that they were published in as some of the information may be outdated.

Reading multicultural books is very important for students to see what it is like in other countries and parts of the world! This book is apart of a series of books written about other countries. These would make for great resources if everyone in the class were researching a different country, but using the same series of books so they would all be able to find the same type of information.… (más)