Ron Fisher

This educational and photographic book is published by the National Geographic Society. It is split into chapters, each by a different 'collaborator' and rain forest expert. The book touches on all the expected themes of today's rain forest including amazing flora and fauna (the primary portions of the book), decimation of the rain forest, mining, poaching, indigenous cultures and how the modern world impinges on them, and more. It's really kind of a coffee-table book or adult primer. While show more many of the pictures might stun or interest kids, the inclusion of many semi-political and adult topics wean it from being a kid's book. Further, it's not really a scientific treatise. More a cross-section of rain forest topics made real by the world-class pictures. It's too bad the book is not a larger, coffee-table format, because many of the pictures are absolutely stunning. Further, since the book is from the 1980's, it does not benefit from some of the more modern graphic design and informational layouts common today: it wouldn't be worse for inclusion of charts and insets and other ways of conveying information. As it is, the endless prose can't hold its ground vs. the pictures, and taking the prose sentence by sentence becomes sluggish. show less

This book is an informational book which is attractive to students even adults. Winter is time for animals to play, hunt and hibernate. Those full-color photos and lively text reveal how birds and mammals live through the icy months. The contentment is fantastic and it is appropriate to elementary schools students to learn some animals how to live in winter.

This is a pleasant book about canoeing throughout North America. The book is a chronological group of trips starting in Minnasota in fall, and extending southward for winter, then to the west in spring and early summer and finally the arctic for the late summer. All the chapters are pleasant.

The National Geographic writer-photographer team provide good descriptions and photos of the trips in each area, leaving the reader wanting to go on a similar trip someday. The team employs local guides show more to get the most out of each river. They enjoy sights along the river as well as the towns they pass through, often visiting with local people along the way. The team enjoys fishing here and there and a few short hikes from their camps. Nice reading. show less

Winter is time for animals to play, hunt and hibernate. 39 full-color photos and lively text reveal how birds and mammals live through the icy months.