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Loading... A Royal Ride: Catherine the Great's Great Inventionby Kristen Fulton
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The story of how an idea of Catherine the Great became the world's first roller coaster. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)947.063092History and Geography Europe Russia and eastern Europe [and formerly Finland] Russian & Slavic History by Period Catharine I - Catharine II 1725-96 Catherine II (the Great), 1762-1796LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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I had no idea, until picking up A Royal Ride: Catherine the Great's Great Invention, that Catherine the Great had a hand in creating this amusement park ride, and I found the story here both informative and engaging. Having greatly enjoyed Kristen Fulton's Flight for Freedom: The Wetzel Family’s Daring Escape from East Germany, I have sought out other books from the author, and this was the first to come through at my library. Unfortunately, while I found the story here fascinating, the accompanying artwork from English illustrator Lucy Fleming was not the equal of that done by Torben Kuhlmann for Flight for Freedom. Created digitally, in Adobe Photoshop, Fleming's illustrations have a cute, cartoon-like style, and a fairy-tale feeling that obscures the historical setting, making the reader feel as if she were in a generic "princess story." It's not that there's anything wrong with the artwork - as I said, it's cute - but I would have preferred something done in a more realistic style, one that captured the historic setting better. Leaving that aside, this was still an interesting and engaging book, one I would recommend to picture-book readers interested in stories of inventors and/or historic royalty.
** It's a fascinating side note that, while so many languages describe a rollercoaster as "Russian Mountains," in Russian itself, this ride is described as "American Mountains" (американские горки / amerikanskiye gorki). How on earth did that happen?!? ( )