Explorers Who Got Lost

by Diane Sansevere-Dreher, Ed Renfro (Illustrator)

Overview

What do Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, and Bartolomeu Dias have in common? They were all explorers who got lost!

During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, almost every explorer who sailed beyond the horizon in search of new lands thought they knew where they were going. In fact, most got terribly lost and stumbled onto places unknown. Their discoveries may have been unintentional, but they changed the course of human history.

Fast-paced and exciting, Explorers Who Got Lost provides detailed information about the most influential explorers of the Age of Discovery: Bartolomeu Dias, Vasco Da Gama, Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, Ferdinand Magellan, Giovanni Da Verrazano, Jacques Cartier, and Henry Hudson.

This lively and accessible resource has dozens of charming illustrations, including portraits of the explorers, maps, routes, and diagrams of ships and navigational equipment. It also includes a reading and activity guide! Explorers Who Got Lost is a captivating and informative read for anyone interested in the Age of Discovery.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780765381514
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/09/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

DIANE SANSEVERE-DREHER is the author of three juvenile biographies in the Changing Our World series: Barbara Bush, Benazir Bhutto, and Stephen Biko. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and four children.

Illustrator ED RENFRO served as a pilot in Europe during World War II and used post-war funding to obtain an art degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. He worked as a freelance illustrator in San Francisco and New York.

Editorial Reviews

Gr 4-8-- A fairly comprehensive source covering the lives and voyages of eight explorers (Dias, da Gama, Columbus, Cabot, Magellan, Verrazano, Cartier, and Hudson). These particular men all ``had a destination in mind and a plan for getting there,'' but went off course at some point. While each dense chapter reiterates the theme, other facts are not neglected. The presentation is not as scholarly as that found in more serious sources, such as Lomask's Great Lives: Exploration (Scribners, 1988), but compensates with a lightheartedness thanks to humorous black-and-white ink cartoon illustrations and the occasional dry comment. The writing is inconsistent; it's often lively and interesting, but occasionally gets bogged down with facts. Definitions of unfamiliar words and supplementary information appear in boxed inserts, and a large format permits uncrowded pages. The illustrations verge on slapstick, with native North and South Americans portrayed in violent, submissive, or silly positions more frequently than the explorers and their crews. A fold-out map is somewhat busy, but appealing, and lends itself to copying and coloring. Despite the weaknesses cited, the book is reliable and complete, and a good come-on for reluctant report writers. --Valerie Lennox, Jacksonville Public Library , FL

School Library Journal