From School Library Journal
Grade 5-8–A fascinating look at 10 wildlife biologists and their work. Each chapter contains sections describing a field experience, biographical data on the scientist, goals set and procedures followed, and pertinent facts on the animals themselves (including classification, habitat, food, and so on). The disparate experiences include rescuing a stranded young blue whale in a Norwegian fjord, teaching a young sea otter to forage for crabs in Monterey Bay, and tracking bats in the Chiricahuas in Arizona. The readable text is conversational in tone, with frequent quotes from the scientists themselves, and is spiced with full-color photos of both animals and biologists. For those who loved Sy Montgomery's exceptional
The Tarantula Scientist (Houghton, 2004) or Laurence Pringle's
Elephant Woman (Atheneum, 1997), this lucid, energetic reportage will be a delight and an inspiration.
–Patricia Manning, formerly at Eastchester Public Library, NY Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Gr. 5-8. Like other books in the Scientists in the Field series, this title offers a thrilling view of scientists at work in the wilderness. Each chapter begins with a dramatic, you-are-there account of a day in the life of a wildlife biologist: a whale specialist saves a beached blue whale off the coast of Newfoundland; another scientist braves avalanche conditions and alpine storms to study endangered marmots. Profiles of the scientists, issues surrounding their research, and facts about the animals and their habitats follow the field stories. Miles' lively text includes visceral details of what it's really like to work outdoors--the weather, the waiting, and even what the scientists eat for snacks--and the color photos enhance the immediacy of the words, with close-ups of a grizzly's mouth, for example. There are enough facts, as well as suggested resources, to support research, but many children will want this to fuel their own fantasies of working with animals in the wild.
Gillian EngbergCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved