First to the Top: Sir Edmund Hillary's Amazing Everest Adventure

by David Hill, Phoebe Morris (Illustrator)

Overview

Up on the world's highest mountain, the sky is tinged the black color of space and the air is almost too thin to breathe. How did Ed, a small, shy boy from a tiny New Zealand town, grow up to become the world's most famous mountaineer and adventurer? How did he climb Everest and do many other astonishing things? This exceptional picture book tells Sir Ed's story—a story of courage, skill and determination, and an inspiration to anyone who dreams of reaching the top.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143506874
Publisher:	Penguin Random House New Zealand Limited
Publication date:	05/01/2016
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	9.50(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	3 - 10 Years

About the Author

David Hill is the author of the award-winning My Brother's War. Phoebe Morris is a debut children's illustrator.

Editorial Reviews

"This engaging, appealing introduction to a fascinating figure could inspire children to climb their own mountains, literal and figurative.” —Booklist

From the Publisher

07/01/2016
Gr 2–4—This enjoyable picture book biography of famed mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary crafts a vibrant picture of Hillary and offers just enough information for a biography report. While the primary focus is on the inaugural climb of Mount Everest, this New Zealander's whole life is explored. The conversational style of the text in this import includes some vocabulary from New Zealand that may be unfamiliar to American children but whose meaning is easily gleaned from context. The font is effectively enlarged to emphasize the danger of scaling Everest. Morris's evocative drawings ably convey the incredible effort it took to achieve the historic task. Subtle details will attract readers, such as when Hillary and Tenzing Norgay are walking in a garden but their shadows show them in their climbing gear. The whirl of the wind atop the mountain on a freezing night is dramatically rendered to enhance the description of solitude and peril of their undertaking. The book avoids the controversy over whether Hillary or Norgay was actually first atop Everest, instead making it a shared victory. The readable text and Morris's expressive illustrations combine to create a winner. VERDICT Recommended for most biography collections.—B. Allison Gray, Goleta Public Library, CA

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