Product Description

Jean Fritz brings history to life once again in 10 true tales of 15th-century European explorers--from Bartholomew Diaz and Christopher Columbus to Juan Ponce de Len and Vasco Nez de Balboa--who changed the map and left behind stories of adventure too good to miss. Fritz approaches [the salient facts] with playful irreverence; accordingly, the frequently traveled material can seem refreshingly new. -- Publishers Weekly, starred review [Fritz] turns in a fast-paced narrative enriched and enlivened by fascinating stories and details of the sort that rarely appear in standard textbooks. -- Kirkus Reviews, pointer review No one is better than Jean Fritz at making history interesting as well as comprehensible. -- The Horn Book Jean Fritz lives in Dobbs Ferry, New York. Anthony Bacon Venti lives in Rockland, Maine.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34170 in Books
• Published on: 1998-07-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780698116382
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
Noted biographer and historian Fritz ( Bully for You, Teddy Roosevelt ) offers a wickedly funny look at 10 explorers who, between 1421 and 1522, ventured into what contemporaneous mapmakers called the Unknown. While presenting the salient facts, Fritz approaches them with playful irreverence; accordingly, the frequently traveled material can seem refreshingly new. Discussing Amerigo Vespucci, she writes, "Some give him credit for recognizing a continent when he saw one. Others call him an out-and-out faker." This tone proves especially effective when Fritz addresses such problematic issues as the treatment of native people and the often accidental nature of many of the discoveries. Reflecting the humor of Fritz's text, Venti's lighthearted black-and-white drawings use subtle strokes, as in a picture of Balboa, heavily in debt, stowed away on a ship and peering out from the barrel he'd hidden inside. Readable, attractive maps begin each chapter, providing useful visual references for each voyager's route. Ages 7-11.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Grade 4-7-A look at "the first great wave of European exploration" (1421-1522) through brief portraits of various participants. Fritz does many things well here. She writes with ease and humor, including details that add color and humanity to historical figures, and skillfully incorporates research into her narrative. She presents the heroic aspects of the voyages, as well as evidence of the arrogance, cruelty, and greed many of these men displayed. Despite all the good attributes, the book suffers because of the complexity of the subject matter. By including so many different individuals, the issue becomes complicated; after a while, the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese names start to run together. Some of the men's lifetimes and discoveries overlap, which makes it even more difficult to sort out who did what... and when. The illustrations are beautiful, entertaining, Renaissance-inspired pencil drawings. They include many amusing touches, such as the island of Porto Santo being overtaken by rabbits, but because they are in black and white and almost too finely drawn, they do not have a great deal of child appeal. A map at the beginning of each chapter shows the explorer's route. An outline of the continents appears on the end papers, but there aren't enough world maps throughout the book to enable readers to get a more complete picture of how the "discovered" countries fit into the world as a whole. The text is not straightforward enough for reports, but interested readers may enjoy perusing these tales of adventure and scientific discovery.
Lucinda Snyder Whitehurst, St. Christopher's School, Richmond, VA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gr. 4-6. Beginning with a historical summary of geographical knowledge from Ptolemy through the Dark Ages to Prince Henry the Navigator, Fritz tells of that 100-year period when Europeans explored the world and mapped the globe. As ever, she includes details that other writers overlook, such as the fact that Balboa's dog Leoncico, "who received a captain's pay on every expedition," led the attack dogs on his master's trip to the Pacific. Although each chapter focuses on one explorer, the text ties their stories into one extended narrative. For example, Leoncico was named after Ponce de Leon, who gave Balboa one of the puppies of his beloved dog Bercerillo. Softly shaded pencil drawings capture the author's humor as well as the more serious and occasionally violent parts of the story. Students looking for a fill-in-the-blank approach to history assignments may prefer standard biographies of explorers, but those seeking a broader picture will find this an intriguing view of the age of exploration. Carolyn Phelan

Customer Reviews

A lively history of the Age of Exploration--warts and all.
This is the first popular book I have seen on the Age of Exploration that lets the reader in on important details that have been evaluated honestly in scholarly works for decades, but which our more traditional popularizers have tended to gloss over in favor of the notion that the Europeans who led the continent's conquest of the world were all both unstoppable and righteous.

(See John H. Perry's "Establishment of the European Hegemony, 1415-1715" (HarperCollins, 1961) for a good example of a more scholarly work that also includes all the warts in its accounts of the famous Age.)

It's a lively, easy-to-read book, and it does a good job of telling both the heroic and the not-so-heroic aspects of the story.

Well done.

How many inaccuracies are there?
I am trying to make a decision as to whether to use this book or not, for homeschool. The first time around, I was "taken" by the fun and interesting way things were presented, and appreciated the uncomfortable truths that I was not taught in school. When it spoke of "Christians" this, that, and the other - I was not so much bothered because Christians have not been perfect over the centuries. Far from it. As I read my bible, we see that some of the greatest bible heros had huge blights on their lives. But we learn from that. For example, David's affair. But we see that he was held accountable, and we see His turning back to God. We see that men fail, but God is redemptive, and Sovereign. So I am not afraid to look at the failings of Christianity, however, this book goes beyond that. In it I see overstatement, bias,and inaccuracies as a result of that bias.

I took it out of our library to re-read to my children. They were really too young last time, and are at just the right age now. I got on here and began reading some of the reviews, and looking up some of the excerpts in the book. As I began to review these excerpts, I saw them in a different light. Discomfort I can handle when it deals in truth, but this was more. I began to see gross overstatements. When I researched "Christians burning the library at Alexandria," and found that to be totally inaccurate, it cause me to question how well researched this book was. I do not want to read a book to my children and constantly wonder if it is even accurate. It seems to me that the irresponsibility comes in with the author's own bias.

The book needs to be rewritten, facts rechecked beforehand. Jean Fritz is a great writer, which is why I gave it two stars, but I don't trust her research now.

Here is a quote from another source concerning the burning of the library at Alexandria:

"So who did burn the Library of Alexandria? Unfortunately most of the writers from Plutarch (who apparently blamed Caesar) to Edward Gibbons (a staunch atheist or deist who liked very much to blame Christians and blamed Theophilus) to Bishop Gregory (who was particularly anti-Moslem, blamed Omar) all had an axe to grind and consequently must be seen as biased. Probably everyone mentioned above had some hand in destroying some part of the Library's holdings. The collection may have ebbed and flowed as some documents were destroyed and others were added. For instance, Mark Antony was supposed to have given Cleopatra over 200,000 scrolls for the Library long after Julius Caesar is accused of burning it."

and

"The real tragedy of course is not the uncertainty of knowing who to blame for the Library's destruction but that so much of ancient history, literature and learning was lost forever."

quotes by Preston Chesser.

Isn't that the point that the writer should have been making?

Now, if I wanted to use this book as an example of how people's bias dictates history, and study all of the so called "facts" outlined, that would be one thing. But my goal is to use it as the precurser to our study of U.S. History.

Will I read it to my children? Not sure yet.

We enjoyed the book, but.....
Ms. Fritz, your bias is showing! I had to edit and editorialize as I read this to my children to correct numerous misstatements and oversimplifications regarding Christianity. For example, Christians were not opposed to scholarship ~ it's largely because of Catholic and Byzantine monks that Greek and Roman literature was preserved.

Furthermore, I've come to think of Jean Fritz as the queen of the sentence fragment. I personally find bad grammar distracting when I'm reading.