Explore! The Most Dangerous Journeys of All Time

This is a simply splendid introduction to the achievements of many of the world’s greatest explorers. It is organised in six main sections under the environmental  headings polar, ocean, land, desert, sky and New Frontiers. Each chapter within these big sections is devoted to a particular explorer and the pages follow a set pattern. So we have an explanation of the challenge, the dangers, a brief biography of the explorer and a map of their journey. The ‘ how to’ information boxes  include how to treat scurvy, how to avoid frostbite and  how to deal with a grizzly bear attack.   Illustrations are varied and make for lively pages: there are portraits, contemporary paintings and pictures of  objects, maps of journeys and some excellent photographs. One of the best of the latter is a stunning picture of explorers standing in a grotto in an iceberg while Scott’s ship, Terra Nova, sits in ice.  When it comes to the written element there are welcome longer passages  as well as shorter  bursts of text.  It is good to see women explorers represented. For example, Amelia Earhart crossed the dangerous Atlantic Ocean in a single-engined Lockheed Vega 5B aeroplane.  And Gertrude Bell  explored  the Arabian desert around a hundred years ago by camel, covering nearly fifteen hundred miles. She gathered information about the geography and the political situation and surveyed the landscape.

Does the book enlighten us about why people take on dangerous journey and quests? It certainly makes it clear that that there are different motivations. Many, like Captain Scott who had ‘pole mania’,  felt the call of an exciting adventure that made great  risks seems worth taking, others like Columbus had a practical reasons for their travels – in his case trying to find an alternative route to the Far East by sailing west. Finding wealth was another great spur – Tasman sailed to Australia and New Zealand in search of fertile farming land and gold and silver to mine.  Amelia Earhart was passionate about flying and encouraged other women to train as pilots. The ‘space race’ points to the political motives that lead to a country striving to be the first reach somewhere- to land on the moon for example. There is enough on each explorer to tempt young readers to read more about those who interest them most. This book provides a clear and attractive starting point and it deserves a place in the school library or the home bookshelf.