Around the World

by Matt Phelan, Matt Phelan (Illustrator)

Overview

A Scott O'Dell Award-winning graphic novelist follows three dauntless adventurers on a Jules Verne-inspired challenge: circling the world, solo!

As the nineteenth century wound down, a public inspired by the novel Around the World in Eighty Days clamored for intrepid adventure. The challenge of circumnavigating the globe as no one ever had before—a feat assuring fame if not fortune—attracted the fearless in droves. Three hardy spirits stayed the course: In 1884, former miner Thomas Stevens made the journey on a bicycle, the kind with a big front wheel. In 1889, pioneer reporter Nellie Bly embarked on a global race against time that assumed the heights of spectacle, ushering in the age of the American celebrity. And in 1895, retired sea captain Joshua Slocum quietly set sail on a thirty-six-foot sloop, braving pirates and treacherous seas to become the first person to sail around the world alone. With cinematic pacing and deft, expressive art, acclaimed graphic novelist Matt Phelan weaves a trio of epic journeys into a single bold tale of three visionaries who set their sights on nothing short of the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763636197
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	10/11/2011
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 8.38(h) x 0.85(d)
Lexile:	GN710L (what's this?)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Matt Phelan is the author-illustrator of the highly acclaimed and award-winning graphic novel The Storm in the Barn. He is also the illustrator of many books for young readers, including Always and I’ll Be There by Ann Stott and The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, winner of the 2007 Newbery Medal. He lives in Philadelphia.

Editorial Reviews

In the wake of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days, the desire to circumnavigate the globe ran rampant, as Phelan (The Storm in the Barn) illustrates in this oddly unexciting tale of three such adventure seekers. In 1884, Thomas Stevens, a former miner, vows to cross the U.S. by bicycle, then a newfangled mode of transportation. After successfully traveling from coast to coast, Stevens decides to continue on to Europe via ship, and on through India and China before ending his 13,500-mile journey in Japan. Nellie Bly, by far the most interesting globetrotter seen here, departs New York in 1889 as a reporter with the goal of traveling around the world in 74 days, beating Verne's fictional Phileas Fogg. Sending dispatches back during her long steamer and train journey—during which she briefly meets Verne in France—Bly's ticking clock adds an element of suspense. Finally, in 1892, Massachusetts sea captain Joshua Slocum sets sail alone on the Spray, intending to sail around the world. Despite visitations from his dead wife and rough weather to liven up the voyage, his journey is comparatively dull. Little differentiates the three stories visually and the elements begin to blur, the result as flat as a breezeless sea. Ages 9–12. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Gr 3–8—Phelan presents three true stories of around-the-world adventures inspired by Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days that, even though they were undertaken in the late 1800s, would be hardly less arduous today. Thomas Stevens, Joshua Slocum, and Nellie Bly saw the world from the seat of a bicycle, aboard a 36-foot sloop, and via trains and ships, respectively. The small, specific pleasures of Phelan's work—the faces of miners emerging from the darkness as they converse, the way slanting rays of sun illuminate a large interior, the expression on Bly's face as she eavesdrops on steamship sailors singing—are showcased in panels laid out in horizontal bands, reinforcing the linear, ever-onward nature of each narrative. The use of limited color palettes enhances the artist's characteristic delicate, expressive pen-and-ink drawings without overpowering them, allowing each traveler's character to be the dominant story element: Stevens's optimism and determination, Slocum's loneliness, and Bly's dogged self-reliance. The stories begin with a set of maps and end with epilogues. A list of sources, most of them primary accounts by the travelers themselves, appears at the end of the book. Design elements such as borders and frames lend a jaunty festivity to a graphic novel that will appeal to aficionados of the form and any reader in search of engrossing true journeys.—Paula Willey, Baltimore County Public Library, Towson, MD

School Library Journal

A first-rate pleasure…riveting, wondrously drawn, expertly paced…
—The New York Times Book Review

Pamela Paul

A first-rate pleasure from the acclaimed graphic novelist Phelan. And this book — riveting, wondrously drawn, expertly paced — is a triumph in and of itself.
—The New York Times

With uncommon perception and a flair for visual drama, Phelan tracks three intrepid souls' solo journeys around the world...Three true tales of adventure as grand and admirable in the telling as they were in the doing.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

A graphic novel that will appeal to aficionados of the form and any reader in search of engrossing true journeys.
—School Library Journal (starred review)

The stories encompass such national ideals as dogged can-do spirit, exploration, enterprise, and commercialism...the very essence of determination and adventure.
—Booklist (starred review)

Phelan invests each tale with its own distinct mood and style.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (starred review)

From the Publisher