Buried Blueprints: Maps and Sketches of Lost Worlds and Mysterious Places [With Magnifying Glass]

This book is so cool! Anybody who hasn't read this needs to!!!!

This is a wonderfully fun book for little adventurers (and their parents too)! This large book contains fourteen two-page foldouts, approx. 14 inches high by 19 inches across, and each picture is packed with informative, and often humorous, images, labels and text, surrounded by a decorative border. The fourteen "maps and sketches of lost worlds and mysterious places" are: the Garden of Eden; Atlantis; Noah's Ark; the Tower of Babel; Ancient Egypt, depicting the construction of a necropolis for Ramses II; King Solomon's Mines; Homer's Odyssey; Man Against Woman, showing a gladiatorial combat between men and women that took place in Pompeii two days before it was destroyed by Vesuvius; the Seven Cities of Gold; Sherwood Forest inhabited by Robin Hood and his merry men; King Arthur and his knights; Genghis Khan and the Great Wall of China; Dracula's castle; and Conan Doyle's Dinosaur Island.Each pre-folded out page has several paragraphs of explanatory text that are intriguing and funny. A flat magnifier is attached to the book by a ribbon. The end pages show maps, explorer's tools and silly photographs of the author on his treks, while the book cover looks like Prof. Al Lorenz's travel-worn satchel.This is a fun concept-book, well-executed and a pleasure for readers (of any age) who are adventurers at heart.

The illustrations in this book are phenomenal! I boughtthis book and I don't even have children!The level of detail in theillustrations is staggering, and one will be drawn to the book again,as there is always something new to discover. I applaud thecreators and hope that there will be more good things to come.