Thursday, March 29, 2012

Hurley, Michael. World’s Greatest Olympians.


Hurley, Michael. World’s Greatest Olympians.   Capstone Publishers, 2012.    32p. $29.00  ISBN 978-1-4109-4122-0 elem  VG-BNes       
     Exciting biographical information, a vivid layout, and outstanding photographs combine to create a winning book about international record-breaking Olympic stars.  Readers of all ages will enjoy this book!  It has so many great features that the reader will turn each page eagerly.  These features include highlights of the Olympic stars’ achievements (presented in the colors bold sky blue and warm orange), Olympic fact files about each star in grass green, and photograph captions in white on a black background.  The layout is without a doubt one of the strengths of this book!  Another strength is the quality of the photographs, which show tremendous features of the Olympic stars down to the musculature, posture and determination of athletes like swimmer Michael Phelps and marathon runner Abebe Bikila.  Olympic viewers will never forget the remarkable win by Abebe, despite a setback in the form of a surgery six weeks before the 1964 Olympics.  The controversial 1988 Olympics brought victory to Carl Lewis when Ben Johnson tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs.  Everyone watched as Ben Johnson became a world-renowned hero when he won the 200-meter and 400-meter running events in 1996.  Other famous Olympians who are highlighted in this book include Jesse Owens, the American who showed Hitler that German athletes were not the best in the world, Fanny Blankers-Koen, Dutch high-jumper and runner who showed the world what a housewife could do, and Steve Redgrave, a British rower who was knighted by the Queen of England for his achievements.  One slight drawback is that the reader will wish the author had included more biographical data about each Olympian, but since his purpose is simply to introduce the reader to each star, he has achieved his goal.  New vocabulary words appear in bold type, and there is a helpful glossary at the end of the book that is preceded by a list of interesting facts about winners of the Winter Olympics as well as Paralympics.  A list of web sites and an index conclude the book.
     The Olympics is a series that includes a variety of topics, including great moments in Olympic history, the 2012 London Olympics, the World of Olympics, and high-tech Olympics.  Each book includes a page of data, action photographs and short snippets of Olympic fact, along with the necessary charts of records, and anecdotal information about variety of stars 
Subject: Olympics
Martha Squaresky
 

No comments: