Anthropologist: Scientist of the People [Hardcover]

Mary Batten (Author), Magadalena Hurtado (Photographer), Kim Hill (Photographer)

Book Description

Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up | Series: Scientists in the Field Series

Imagine making your living by hunting, fishing, and collecting wild plants and insects. Imagine having to worry about being attacked by a jaguar or some other wild animal. This is how our ancestors lived for hundreds of thousands of years, but only a few peoples carry on this ancient lifestyle today. One of the few are the Ache, hunter-gatherers living in Paraguay, a country in South America.
Magdalena Hurtado is an anthropologist who has been studying the Ache for fifteen years. She has spent years living with the Ache people: learning their language, observing their history. The photographs and text offer invaluable insight into the work of an anthropologist.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Gr 5-8-A stunning photo-essay about the life and work of Hurtado, an anthropologist who has been studying the Ach‚ people in Paraguay for 15 years. The well-organized, logical text intertwines the information about these hunter-gatherers and the changes in their society with insight into the anthropologist's methods of observation, data collection, and analysis. Unfamiliar terms are effortlessly explained. The large, full-color photographs sometimes fill an entire page and show individuals engaged in daily activities. There are also a couple of maps (without a scale or compass rose). Batten gently explains that there are many reasons for studying other cultures. Her respect for the work of Hurtado is evident as is her concern for the future of the Ach‚. This book is an excellent choice for booktalking and it will fill requests for assignment material on careers, women's history month, introductory anthropology, and the peoples of South America. Reluctant older readers will be enticed by the photos. Students who enjoy this title may also be interested in Joan Mark's Margaret Mead (Oxford, 2001), which offers a more complete life and education of a female anthropologist, and Jan Reynolds's Amazon Basin (Harcourt, 1993), a photo exploration of the life of the Yanomama people of the Amazon region.

Dona J. Helmer, College Gate School Library, Anchorage, AK

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Reviewed with Stephen Kramer's Hidden Worlds.

Gr. 4-7. From the Scientists in the Field series that produced outstanding titles such as Nic Bishop's Digging for Bird Dinosaurs (2000) come these fine new entries. Anthropologist introduces readers to Magdalena Huriado and Kim Hill, a husband-and-wife team who study the Ache of Paraguay, one of the few remaining hunting and gathering peoples. Batten's graceful text covers basic science concepts (what an anthropologist really does; what evolutionary biology is) in accessible, clear language and examples just right for kids, offering fascinating hypotheses along the way. Hidden Worlds focuses on the work of Hawaii-based microscopist Dennis Kunkel. The text nicely illustrates how a scientist explores, discovers, and formulates questions. The stunning color photographs, provided by the scientists themselves, are the books' real strength. Huriado and Hill's shots bring the Ache's way of life up close, without sensationalizing, while kids will pore over Kunkel's magnified shots of a carpet flea, red blood cells, and more. Substantive, readable, and visually outstanding. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Hardcover: 64 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children; New title edition (September 24, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0618083685
• ISBN-13: 978-0618083688
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 11.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #691,020 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #19 in Books > Children's Books > Education & Reference > Citizenship

More About the Author

Mary Batten is an award-winning writer for television, film and publishing. Her many writing projects have taken her into tropical rainforests, astronomical observatories, scientific laboratories and medical research centers. She is the author of 15 nature/science books for adults and children, dozens of magazine articles and some 50 television scripts for Time-Life Films, National Geographic, Walt Disney Educational Media and others. She was nominated for an Emmy for her work on the Children's Television Workshop's 3-2-1 CONTACT series. Her books include Sexual Strategies: How Females Choose Their Mates, which The New York Times called "Fun and delightful to read, offering an abundance of fascinating facts." This book led to an appearance on OPRAH. Her children's book, Aliens from Earth: When Animals and Plants Invade Other Ecosystems, won the 2006 Izaak Walton League of America Conservation Book of the Year Award and was adopted by New York City Public Schools in support of the 4th grade science requirement for study of ecosystems. Her children's book, Baby Wolf, was selected by both Scholastic and Troll Book clubs. Her magazine articles have appeared in Cosmopolitan, Ladies' Home Journal, Modern Maturity and others. Her magazine article for Science Digest, "Sexual Choice: The Female's Newly Discovered Role," won The Newswomen's Club of New York's Front Page Award for best feature story. She is married to composer Ed Bland. They have two children: dancer/choreographer Stefanie Batten Bland and writer Robert Bland.

Website: http://www.marybatten.com
Blog: http://thinkaboutwriting.blogspot.com/

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for kids and adults, December 15, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Anthropologist: Scientist of the People (Hardcover)

I gave this book to my 3 yr old neice and 6 yr old nephew, and they were as fascinated by it as their mother and father were. The pictures are wonderful and the text really gives you the feel of what the lives of one of the last groups of hunter gatherers in the world are like. And it paints a detailed and fascinating picture of what it is like to be an anthropologist studying and loving a people whose lives are so different from our own. A really enjoyable book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MARVELLOUS INTRODUCTION TO ANTHROPOLOGY, August 14, 2001

By 

Fifth Generation Texan (Winters, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Anthropologist: Scientist of the People (Hardcover)

This biography of the young Venezuelan anthropologist Magdalena Hurtado provides a very clear description of her fieldwork among one of the world's last foraging peoples, the Ache indians of Paraguay. This beautifully illustated book provides the best available introduction for young readers of what it is an anthropologist does. Although the publishers recommend the book for ages 9-12, my guess is that students in junior high and high school --perhaps especially young women -- will find the book both informative and inspirational.