Lost City: The Discovery of Machu Picchu

by Ted Lewin, Ted Lewin (Illustrator)

Overview

Caldecott Honor-winner Ted Lewin takes readers on a thrilling journey to the wilds of Peru in this story of Hiram Bingham, who, in 1911, carved a treachero's path through snake-filled jungles and across perilous mountains in search of Vilcapampa, the lost city of the Incas. Guided the last steps by a young Quechua boy, however, he discovered not the rumored lost city, but the ruins of Machu Picchu, a city totally unknown to the outside world, and one of the wonders of the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780142425800
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	10/11/2012
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	48
Sales rank:	1,045,215
Product dimensions:	9.31(w) x 11.06(h) x 0.18(d)
Lexile:	AD670L (what's this?)
Age Range:	7 - 12 Years

About the Author

Ted Lewin grew up in an old frame house in Buffalo, New York, with two brothers, one sister, two parents, a lion, an iguana, a chimpanzee, and an assortment of more conventional pets. The lion was given to his older brother, Don, while he was traveling as a professional wrestler, and he shipped it home. The family kept Sheba in the basement fruit cellar until Don returned and their mother convinced him to give it to the Buffalo zoo.

 

Ted always knew he wanted to be an illustrator. As a child he copied the work of illustrators and painters he admired, including N.C. Wyeth, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Velázquez, and Goya. When it came time to go to art school (Pratt), he needed to earn money to finance his education. So, following in his brother’s footsteps, he took a summer job as a wrestler—the beginning of a 15-year part-time career that eventually inspired his autobiographical book I Was a Teenage Professional Wrestler.

Ted’s career as an artist began with illustrations for adventure magazines, and it’s only over the last several years that he has devoted his time to writing and illustrating children’s books. “I’m having more fun doing this than anything I’ve ever done before,” he says. He is an avid traveler, and many of his books are inspired by trips to such places as the Amazon River, the Sahara Desert, Botswana, Egypt, Lapland, and India.

Ted and his wife Betsy live in Brooklyn, New York, where they share their home with two cats, Slick and Chopper.

Ted Lewin grew up in an old frame house in Buffalo, New York, with two brothers, one sister, two parents, a lion, an iguana, a chimpanzee, and an assortment of more conventional pets. The lion was given to his older brother, Don, while he was traveling as a professional wrestler, and he shipped it home. The family kept Sheba in the basement fruit cellar until Don returned and their mother convinced him to give it to the Buffalo zoo.

Ted always knew he wanted to be an illustrator. As a child he copied the work of illustrators and painters he admired, including N.C. Wyeth, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Velázquez, and Goya. When it came time to go to art school (Pratt), he needed to earn money to finance his education. So, following in his brother’s footsteps, he took a summer job as a wrestler—the beginning of a 15-year part-time career that eventually inspired his autobiographical book I Was a Teenage Professional Wrestler.

Ted’s career as an artist began with illustrations for adventure magazines, and it’s only over the last several years that he has devoted his time to writing and illustrating children’s books. “I’m having more fun doing this than anything I’ve ever done before,” he says. He is an avid traveler, and many of his books are inspired by trips to such places as the Amazon River, the Sahara Desert, Botswana, Egypt, Lapland, and India.

Ted and his wife Betsy live in Brooklyn, New York, where they share their home with two cats, Slick and Chopper.

Editorial Reviews

Ted Lewin captures the exhilaration that attended Bingham's discovery by splitting the narrative viewpoint between the professor and the little Quechua boy who was his guide. Both encountered new worlds. Lewin drew for inspiration on Bingham's journal and on what he saw during his own trip to Peru nearly a century later. The result could put him in the running for the Caldecott Medal. — Elizabeth Ward

The Washington Post

With lush and detailed watercolors, Lewin guides readers high into the almost otherworldly mountains of Peru. In retracing the steps of Hiram Bingham, who in 1911 searched for the lost city of Vilcapampa and discovered the 500-year-old Incan ruins of Machu Picchu, he balances a compelling visual chronicle with sure storytelling. The narrative alternates between Bingham's treacherous trail into the dense, snake-infested jungle and the premonitions of a Quechua boy who has dreamed of "a tall stranger carrying a small black box" (the box is Bingham's camera). The professor's quest begins 60 miles south in Cusco, where a gorgeous, sun-dappled ancient wall may excite readers' interest in archeology: "Right here was the most beautiful stonework he had ever seen-huge stones cut so perfectly that not even a razor blade could be slipped between them. The Inca had no iron tools to carve them, no wheel or draft animals to move them.... How had the Inca built them!" A sense of intrigue permeates another scene in a dark cantina, where Bingham confers with locals, their faces unseen. Wearing an Indiana Jones-style fedora, Bingham hunches over intently, his face half-shadowed in the bright sun. A perilous trek and a fortuitous meeting with the boy in the jungle lead Bingham to the ruins, the significance of which are explained in a helpful afterword. A rewarding journey. Ages 5-9. (June) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Gr 4-7-In 1911, Hiram Bingham and a team of archaeologists went in search of Vilcapampa, the legendary lost city of the Inca. In this picture-book account of that expedition, Lewin relates Bingham's journey from Cusco to the jungles of Peru and from there, led by a local child, to mountaintop ruins. The site wasn't Vilcapampa, but rather an isolated, impenetrable ancient city of temples, dwellings, plazas, and terraces connected by steep staircases. Distinguished double-page watercolor paintings capture the grandeur of the location, the monumental solidity of the Inca stonework, and the surrounding jungle. The final pages continue the story with information on the work involved in preparing the ruins for excavation and some initial findings and include a useful pronunciation guide to Spanish and Quechua words. Follow this title with Elizabeth Mann's Machu Picchu (Mikaya, 2000) for background on the people who built this city, and to learn what later excavations yielded.-Daryl Grabarek, School Library Journal Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Magnificent watercolor landscapes and mystical hooey form the high and low points, respectively, of this tale of archaeologist Hiram Bingham's discovery of the Incan city of Machu Picchu in 1911. Drawing heavily, according to an author's note and bibliography, on Bingham's own accounts of the expedition, Lewin creates in Bingham a protagonist consumed by wonder and driven by determination to discover a rumored lost Incan city. As he pushes further and further into the Andes, the full-bleed illustrations open up a glorious world of rushing rivers and jungled mountains, until he uncovers, with the aid of the indigenous farmers, Machu Picchu itself. Unfortunately, the narrative relies on invented dialogue and, even worse, a fictional character, based on a boy mentioned in Bingham's accounts, who foresees Bingham's arrival in a dream. These sequences stretch credulity past the breaking point and beg the question, why doesn't the author trust the spirit of discovery enough to allow it to carry readers along? The story ends abruptly, with the discovery of the lost city; a further note describes the subsequent excavation. (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-9)

Kirkus Reviews