10 Rivers That Shaped the World

by Marilee Peters, Kim Rosen (Illustrator)

Overview

Navigate the fascinating twists and turns of rivers that have molded our history. Rivers can be extraordinarily powerful, and not just because of their fast-flowing currents. They can make civilizations rise or crumble, divide cultures or link them together, and even provide crucial clues to where we came from. Dive into these 10 surprising stories about the power of rivers through the ages, including: • How the “lucky accident” of the Nile’s unique flooding patterns allowed the culture of Ancient Egypt to flourish in one of the hottest, driest places on earth; • Why the Amazon helped scientists discover how species evolve; • How Livingstone's ill-fated exploration of the Zambezi changed Africa forever; • Why you can trace just about every hit song back to the Mississippi River; • How the massive Three Gorges Dam displaced over one million Chinese in the Yangtze River Valley; • Why people in India have gathered to bathe in the Ganges for thousands of years; • The crucial roles of the Awash, the Thames, and the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in human history. Compelling storytelling, striking original art, and colorful photos take readers on a unique journey across time and place.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781554517398
Publisher:	Annick Press, Limited
Publication date:	04/01/2015
Series:	World of Tens Series
Pages:	136
Product dimensions:	7.30(w) x 9.50(h) x 0.60(d)
Lexile:	1120L (what's this?)
Age Range:	9 - 11 Years

About the Author

Marilee Peters is the author of Patient Zero: Solving the Mysteries of Deadly Epidemics. She lives in Vancouver, BC.

Kim Rosen illustrates for clients all over the world from her home in Northampton, MA. She previously illustrated 10 Plants That Shook the World.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Awash: A River of Bones 4

2 Tigris & Euphrates: Twin Rivers of Civilization 16

3 Nile: The Giving River 30

4 Rhine: An International River 42

5 Amazon: A World of Water 54

6 Zambezi: Exploring the River of Freedom 66

7 Thames: The River That Built an Empire 78

8 Mississippi: River of Song 92

9 Ganges: River of Faith 104

10 Yangtze: A Changing River 114

Conclusion 125

Glossary of River Terms 126

Acknowledgments & Photo Credits 127

Sources 128

Index 130

About the Author and Illustrator 132

Editorial Reviews

2015-04-29
Ten great rivers (well, 11, but two are kissing cousins)—and not just the obvious ones—give Peters a chance to fashion 10 fine stories. The rivers are the Tigris and Euphrates, Nile, Rhine, Amazon, Zambezi, Thames, Mississippi, Ganges, Yangtze, and Awash (which, by the way, is the second largest river in Ethiopia); each has much on offer for good storytelling. Peters keeps the narrative accessible and lively—there are lots of boxed items and much shifting of gears. Rivers tell us much about ourselves (between their banks lies the cradle of civilization, after all), and Peters freely ranges to tap all their mystery and social import: piracy, great aqueducts, Hammurabi's Code, the birth of jazz, pilgrimages, diseases, colonial malfeasance, poisonous caterpillars. She also cautions that as much as rivers promise, they are fickle creatures. Take the great Harappan Empire on the Indus River. The Harappan Empire? What Harappan Empire? Exactly. Numerous photographs, both contemporary and archival, allow for an intimacy with each river, and where there is no photographic evidence (as with the pharaohs and early-19th-century mudlarks along the Thames, for instance), Rosen obligingly paints the picture in striking colors. More captions would have been helpful, as would identifying which was the Euphrates and which the Tigris on the map of their courses—small grouses in an otherwise crack effort. A well-turned, involving introduction to important waterways on six of the seven continents. (Nonfiction. 9-12)

Kirkus Reviews