Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Bayport Public Library | J 968 BLA | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Oakdale Library | J 968 BLA | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Wildwood Library (Mahtomedi) | J 968 BLA | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Take a trip around the world with the latest entries in the Enchantment of the World series. From the volcanoes of Iceland to the hilltop castles of Germany, readers are transported to distant lands with the fascinating text and attention-grabbing photos in these books. Each country's culture, history, and geography are explored in detail, allowing readers a chance to see how people live in faraway nations.
Key Features:
Colorful photos provide breathtaking views of foreign cities and landscapes Sidebars highlight especially interesting people, places, and events Delicious, easy recipes give readers the opportunity to experience foreign cuisine firsthand Fun facts and statistics are included for easy reference Additional content for further learning on this subject available at www.factsfornow.scholastic.comReviews (3)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 5-10-Blauer and Lauré begin with a simple account of Nelson Mandela's release from prison and the hopes it engendered and emphasize life since majority rule. The chapter on history, however, is curiously old-fashioned, beginning only with the coming of Europeans. South Africa in Pictures (Lerner, 1996) better reveals the historical role of Africans and the resistance of 19th-century African kingdoms to the encroaching Europeans. Nonetheless, key themes emerge: the competition for land and resources among whites and between whites and blacks; the impact of racial discrimination; the struggle of black Africans for freedom; and the diversity of South African society. Foster's book opens with a fictional description of a Kuwaiti brother and sister during the Iraqi invasion and closes with their imagined present-day lives, which is problematic in a book offered as nonfiction. While there are some errors of fact, superficial analyses of Islam and the divisions between families, classes, and nationalities are more significant. Almost a fifth of the book is consumed by the Gulf War. Compared to earlier titles in the series, both books are easier to read, the maps are simpler, and more of the illustrations are in full color.-Loretta Kreider Andrews, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, MD (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
This accessible overview naturally focuses on the country's racial divide, discussing the history of apartheid and the eventual end of legalized racism. The clear text, illustrated with color photographs, also touches on the country's geography, wildlife, and diverse population, making the volume a well-rounded general introduction. A time line aligns South Africa's history with events occurring in other parts of the world. Bib., ind. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Oxford has built this new database with content from its recently published Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience0 and Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass0 , along with the second edition of Black Women in America0 (2005) and various other Oxford and Grove titles. There is additional material from the yet-to-be-published African American National Biography0 . Currently, researchers can access more than 7,500 articles on the site. Also on hand are more than 1,000 images, more than 100 maps, more than 100 charts and tables, and primary sources with specially written commentaries. Entries from the upcoming The Encyclopedia of African American History, 1896 to the Present: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-first Century0 will be added later this year. The top navigation bar offers Search, Browse, Timelines, Links, and Learning Center. In addition, there is a Quick Search box for entering terms and using Boolean operators, wildcards, and other options from the familiar tool kit. Quick Search pulls results from all types of content: Biographies, Subject Entries, Primary Sources, Images, Maps, Charts, and Tables; the user needs to use other searches to limit a search by content type. The Search tab on the top navigation bar makes available five separate forms--Main, Biography, Image, Primary Source, and Bibliography. Each form offers slightly different options. In a Main Search, the user can search by entry title, entry author, or full text and narrow the search by era and one or more of seven broad categories. In a Biography Search, users can enter names and keywords and also select birth and death dates and places, place of origin, and activity or occupation. The Era and Category filters are available on all five pages. The Browse search enables the user to browse the site's content alphabetically and limit the search by content type and, again, by era and category. If one chooses to limit by content type, there does not seem to be a way to browse more than one type at a time. We entered Caribbean sugar plantations 0 in the Quick Search box and got a list of 122 results ranked in order of relevance (the default, but there is an option to switch to alphabetical order). At the top of the Results page are tabs showing the numbers of results in each content category; clicking one of the tabs causes only the results in that category to display. Each of our results was shown with content type, a brief excerpt with the search term or terms highlighted, and source. An icon identifies entries that have images. If we wanted to further refine our search at this point, a More Search Options button automatically populated the relevant search form with our terms. We selected African American food0 from our results list. In addition to the article, which comes from The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America0 (2004), we found the article's author and source, a clickable article table of contents, and a list of related articles, all shown in the left-hand navigation bar. Also on the article page are Print, E-mail, and Cite buttons and an option to turn highlighting on or off, a nice feature. Another nice feature is the Look It Up button, which allow users to highlight any term in an article and launch a new search. The Timelines part of the site is divided into broad topical categories such as Women's History and Sports. A different set of topics is used to organize the Links area, which provides links to free Internet resources. Learning Center is currently a rather small "collection of learning and teaching resources" designed for students and teachers. Another feature that needs to be mentioned is At a Glance. For certain high-interest topics, such as Hank Aaron and the Fifteenth Amendment, Oxford has created student-friendly At a Glance pages that pull together content from across the site. For Hank Aaron, the page contains a box with basic identifying information; titles, sources, word counts, and excerpts from two articles, with links to the full records; and links to images, Timeline entries, and related articles, such as Baseball.0 We would have liked to see a list of all the At a Glance pages but couldn't find one. Oxford will be offering monthly features, and users can opt to be alerted to these by e-mail. The monthly feature and e-mail alert are free. Design and navigation are well thought out; there seems to be very little Oxford hasn't considered in making the site easy to navigate and use. Libraries may already have access to much of the high-quality content in Oxford African American Studies Cen0 ter in their print collections, but the database is designed for a less-scholarly audience than most of Oxford's other databases and will likely have more appeal for students than the various Oxford encyclopedias and companions sitting on the reference shelf. Recommended for high-school, public, and academic libraries. --Mary Ellen Quinn Copyright 2006 Booklist
Table of Contents
| Chapter 1 Coming of Age | p. 8 |
| Chapter 2 From Sea to Sea | p. 20 |
| Chapter 3 Natural Wonders | p. 30 |
| Chapter 4 Ancient and Modern | p. 42 |
| Chapter 5 Starting Over | p. 72 |
| Chapter 6 Powering a Continent | p. 80 |
| Chapter 7 A Diverse Land | p. 90 |
| Chapter 8 Spiritual Ways | p. 98 |
| Chapter 9 Creative Life | p. 108 |
| Chapter 10 Varied Lives | p. 118 |
| Timeline | p. 128 |
| Fast Facts | p. 130 |
| To Find Out More | p. 134 |
| Index | p. 136 |
