Famous Places

Back in the late 1980s and early to mid-1990s, there were a number of books published to address needs of younger readers. Eyewitness Books (published by DK) was one of these. And Time-Life also had its own series, "A Child's First Library of Learning." This is one of the representative volumes in the Time-Life series. The first lines of the book (Page 4): "If you could travel around the earth you would discover many wonderful things. . . . Many places are so interesting that they are famous all over the world." Pages 4-5 feature a sampling of these on a map--from The Grand Canyon to The Great Wall of China to The Great Barrier Reef to The Eiffel Tower to. . . . After that, the book proceeds by raising questions about famous places and then answering these. The first question: "Why do soldiers stand guard at Buckingham Palace?" Other illustrative questions: "Why is Venice called the City of Canals"? "Do you know what a fjord is"? "How was the Grand Canyon formed"? "What waterfall is the highest"? "How were the Himalayas formed"? "Did you know that in Australia there's a rock two miles long"? For each question, the book provides a brief answer that would be at an appropriate level for young readers. The book is almost 90 pages long. Illustrations are fine, but not at the level of the "Eyewitness Books" series. All in all, a nice work for younger readers.

I was surprised when I opened this book and found it to be an excellent geography resource for kids up to middle school age. Includes both natural and man-made landmarks, with easy-to-understand explanations. For example, the book profiles the Panama Canal, and includes a nice diagram of how the locks work. The profile for fjords illustrates how they are formed. I think this is a great resource for an often-forgotten aspect of geography.