From Booklist
Gr. 2-4, younger for reading aloud. This picture book is a great way to introduce the sweep of history and the drama of geological change. Exciting words and double-page artwork celebrate New York City now. Turn the pages and there's always surprise: 350 years ago fewer than 1,500 people lived in what was then called New Amsterdam, but 18 different languages echoed through the streets; 400 years ago, the Lenapes hunted on a trail that later became a street named Broadway. Then the leaps back in time become huge--190 million years, to the age of the dinosaurs; then to cataclysmic geological upheavals, including volcanoes, mountains, oceans; and finally, only rock. Christiansen's pastel illustrations, enhanced with dramatic computer images, are clear and informative, though sometimes too cute (a smiling woolly mammoth), but the text does make complex information immediate for children, who will learn some amazing facts. A good choice for science and social studies classes. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
About the Author
Susan E. Goodman is the author of many books for children, including Claws, Coats, and Camouflage and Seeds, Stems, and Stamens, both named Outstanding Science Trade Books by the National Science Teachers Association, and Animal Rescue (an American Bookseller Association Pick of the List). She began to write On This Spot the day she "started thinking about how most of us assume that what is now always was, and always will be."
Susan E. Goodman lives with her family in Boston, Massachusetts.
