Kuwait (Enchantment of the World) [Library Binding]

Leila Merrell Foster (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 10 and up | Grade Level: 5 and up | Series: Enchantment of the World

Suitable for National Curriculum KS2/3, a title in the ENCHANTMENT OF THE WORLD series which examines different aspects of life in Kuwait, such as climate, flora and fauna, history, government, sports and culture. Includes an appendix and timeline. Illustrated with colour photographs.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-10-Blauer and Laure begin with a simple account of Nelson Mandela's release from prison and the hopes it engendered and emphasize life since majority rule. The chapter on history, however, is curiously old-fashioned, beginning only with the coming of Europeans. South Africa in Pictures (Lerner, 1996) better reveals the historical role of Africans and the resistance of 19th-century African kingdoms to the encroaching Europeans. Nonetheless, key themes emerge: the competition for land and resources among whites and between whites and blacks; the impact of racial discrimination; the struggle of black Africans for freedom; and the diversity of South African society. Foster's book opens with a fictional description of a Kuwaiti brother and sister during the Iraqi invasion and closes with their imagined present-day lives, which is problematic in a book offered as nonfiction. While there are some errors of fact, superficial analyses of Islam and the divisions between families, classes, and nationalities are more significant. Almost a fifth of the book is consumed by the Gulf War. Compared to earlier titles in the series, both books are easier to read, the maps are simpler, and more of the illustrations are in full color.
Loretta Kreider Andrews, Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, MD
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 10 and up
  
• Library Binding: 144 pages
• Publisher: Children's Press (CT) (March 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0516206044
• ISBN-13: 978-0516206042
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,241,545 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good book, except for a few inaccuracies., August 2, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Kuwait (Enchantment of the World) (Library Binding)

I liked this account of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the history of the country itself. It has a lot of good information, but I think that the author or publisher should have consulted with more experts. The author makes a few errors in her facts. An example is that she notes the sand storms that strike Kuwait in the winter. Anyone who has lived in Kuwait can tell you that sandstorms are a summer phenominon. Several of photographs that contain Arabic writing were printed backwards as well. While the errors in this book do not discredit the book as a whole, they are inaccuracies that could have been avoided quite easily. Dispite these errors, I beleive that this book gives a fairly good picture of what Kuwait is like. It also paints a good picture of what Kuwait was like during the time between the Iraqi occupation and liberation.

3.0 out of 5 stars An interesting history that needed to be fact-checked., June 28, 2010

By 

E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Kuwait (Enchantment of the World) (Library Binding)

Leila Merrell Foster's "Kuwait" is part of a Young Adult (YA) series called "Enchantment of the World" published by Children's Press, a division of Grolier Publishing Co., Inc.

Unfortunately this book contains the same blooper as another YA book on Kuwait that I recently read (Kuwait (Creation of the Modern Middle East) by Susan Korman) in that it has 7th Century Arabian tribes challenging the might of the powerful Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman Empire didn't take shape until nearly a millennium after Muhammad's death.

Neither of these authors has been to Kuwait or has a background in Middle Eastern history, although Leila Merrell Foster claims to have visited "Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Egypt, Syria, Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon."

Since editors of these two books used writers without much background in the countries they wrote about, shouldn't they have edited the resulting manuscripts for factual content?

This author shapes her history of Kuwait around the Iraqi invasion of this country, and tells the story of the 1990 attack through the eyes of twelve-year-old Ahmad and his family, residents of Kuwait City. Unfortunately, what Ms. Foster does not tell the reader until her own brief autobiography at book's end is that "Ahmad, Fatima, and their family and friends are fictional characters." Since this book purports to be a true history, she should have informed us up front that her characters, who narrate the brutality of the Iraqi soldiers and the sufferings of the Kuwaitis, do not actually exist.

Kuwait's history, like many of the countries on the Arabian Peninsula is divided into before and after the discovery of oil. Pearl-diving, fishing, and ship-building were the main Kuwaiti occupations before the discovery of vast oil fields under its soil and in the Persian Gulf. It wasn't until after World War II that drilling began in earnest.

This author does a good job of balancing the positive and negative impact of oil money on Kuwaiti society. On the minus side, there are now more foreign workers in this small country (the size of New Jersey) than there are citizens, and Kuwait's neighbors (Iraq and Saudi Arabia) have made several attempts to take back what they consider to be 'their' territory.

Ultimately, this is an interesting book. I only wish it had been edited more thoroughly, and the author hadn't led me astray about her fictional characters (I became quite attached to them).