From School Library Journal
Grades 4-7--Beautiful photographs of spectacular caves illustrate this flawed introduction. While limestone caves are the focus, mention is also made of sandstone, lava tube, sea, and ice caves. Five short chapters introduce how they were-and continue to be-formed, along with cave gear, safe practices, and locations. Unfortunately, the science in this book is dated, oversimplified to the point of being misleading, and sometimes just wrong (calcite is not formed by evaporation; water does not dissolve rock). At least three of the captions for the photographs are minimally uninspiring if not outright inaccurate. Laudably, cave ethics are mentioned in several instances (take nothing but photos, leave nothing but footprints; the importance of maintaining access to caves by respecting landowner rights) but a photo shows a tourist in a commercial cave touching a speleothem with her bare hands. Roy Gallant's Limestone Caves (Watts, 1998) and Ron Schultz's Looking Inside Caves and Caverns (John Muir, 1993) are better choices.
Joel Shoemaker, Southeast Junior High School, Iowa City, IA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.
