Adventures on Earth by Simon Tyler

I was interested in this because it is supposed to be about the extremes of the planet and the people who have explored them. Unfortunately, it turned out to just reiterate a lot of Western men and colonial expeditions. There were some interesting points, but on the whole I can't recommend it.

The book is arranged by regions, polar, mountains (there is a LOT about mountain-climbing), volcanoes, oceans, deserts, rivers, jungles and forests, and caves and chasms. Each section includes nonfiction facts about things like local animals or conservation. The introductions pay lip service to the destruction, misery, and horrors brought by early explorers and colonists, but this isn't really acknowledged in the choices of explorers to profile.

The polar regions revisit the "classic" explorers, Amundsen, Scott, as well as some more modern scientific expeditions. Reasonable, considering the book is written in Britain, to focus on explorers connected with that country. Then there is a lengthy section on mountains. So, I personally don't get the whole mountain-climbing thing. But I have a hard time seeing them as scientific exploration, since mostly the people just seem to climb them and also I think it's ridiculous to laud "mountain climbers" when it's actually the indigenous people hauling everything up the mountain half the time. The book does briefly mention some female mountain climbers and gives a nod to the environmental destruction some climbers have caused.

There are two spreads devoted to volcanoes, focusing on Katia Krafft, and one page on scientific research into underwater volcanoes. Another large chunk of the book is devoted to ocean exploration and here is where I really did not like the tenor of the book. It starts with early exploration, the Polynesians and Vikings, then goes into the Age of Exploration. Again, there is a brief paragraph saying "some were also responsible for tyrannical colonization, the emergence of the slave trade, and great acts of cruelty." Hard to take that seriously when they are lauding the explorers in the previous paragraph for "great displays of bravery, skill, and conquest." Apart from anything else, these expeditions were purely for wealth and glory - science wasn't even a blip on the radar at the time. They didn't really learn much about geography because they were interested in basically looting new lands. Then there's a page on the British Challenger expedition of the 1800s, then the book moves into modern oceanography and undersea exploration, which gets one page.

Deserts completely ignores the actual indigenous people who live there and early expeditions by Arab people in favor of "The first European" explorers. Excuse me? People LIVED there, how does that make you a pioneering explorer? There is a page on a Polish adventurer who crossed part of the Gobi desert on foot. Why? Just to do it? Sigh. Moving on to rivers, we get more British explorers of the White Nile, British explorers of the Amazon, and a Canadian expedition, which cheerfully explains how the indigenous people's territory was renamed after the explorers.

The last pages are on forests, mostly talking about conservation, and caves with a variety of explorers mentioned briefly. There is a glossary, but no other sources or back matter.

Let's talk about layout. It's... unfortunate. The text is a very small font and difficult to read, often being set against dark blue, green, and gray backgrounds. This is a major flaw in a children's book, since kids are often reluctant to read small, dense text that is difficult to decipher. The art is bland, showing silhouettes and swathes of color and form with no real detail or differentiation between landscapes.

Verdict: This book could have been pretty awesome, but the focus on European explorers, poor layout, and a generally confusing mix of information are disappointing to say the least. Not recommended.

ISBN: 9781843654278; Published October 2019 by Pavilion; Review copy provided by publicist