Cally Oldershaw

I assume that as a Chair of the Gemmological Association of Great Britain and Curator of Gemstones for the Natural History Museum, Oldershaw is deeply passionate about her subject. I do, however, have to make that assumption as, sadly, there is no passion in her writing.

There's a lot of dryly-delivered facts themed into chapters, but often little connection between one paragraph and the next. There is no sense of wonder about the depths of time involved in geological processes of rock and show more gem formation, and little appreciation of the cultural and artistic uses to which the materials are put, beyond a reporting of their existence.

So, mildly disappointed by the contents of this beautifully manufactured and illustrated book. I didn't waste my time in reading it, but neither was I particularly elevated by it. show less

This book stretches the term "gems" to include pearls carved shells, and various other carvings, even metal artwork. That takes it out of the gem reference world and puts it on the coffee table pile of interesting reads instead of reference books. I was going to check if it covered ivory too but the index font is too small to use, even with reading glasses that I'm wearing. Descriptions of the rocks gemstones come from is average. Color photos of gems from the rocks are mostly inaccurate in show more both the intended color and in the color varieties most often encountered. A good example of inaccurate color is the emerald brooch on page 123. The color shown is that of Peridot or Olivine, not the emerald color the brooch must have had, unless the brooch has been misidentified. Page 42 has a good comparison of emerald and Peridot color. Many non-reference books come off the press with poor color quality control. The more common inaccuracies are the shades of green, being too bluish or too yellowish, or else the blues and purples looking interchangeable.

Text within the book is pretty good and seems pretty accurate. show less

I like the way this is laid out, a basic introduction to the subject, I would use this as a quick reference. It has a variety of stones and metals in both their unfinished and finished state.

This book is a good resource for a classroom discussion about oceans. It talks about the different shapes of different oceans, what kinds of things live in the ocean, the type of water and rocks that can be found in the ocean, food that we get from the sea, transportation across the oceans, and how the ocean is polluted. This book is very dense in its content and goes very in depth about different aspects of the ocean. This would be a good resource for grades 4-6.