A World of Wonders: Geographic Travels in Verse and Rhyme - Hardcover

Lewis, J. Patrick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0803725795 ISBN 13: 9780803725799

Publisher: Dial Books, 2002

Synopsis

Could anyone somersault across the San Andreas fault? Why was Hawaii named after a Sandwich? Of longitude and latitude, which has more "flatitude"?

You'll travel the globe (and some of the sky) discovering answers to these and other questions you never knew to ask! There are all sorts of amazing things to know about thousands of "spaces and places to be" within the fantastical world of GE-OG-RA-PHY. Dive in, come aboard, zip along, take it slow-traveling by book is a great way to go!

About this title

Review:

Beautiful crackle-varnished pictures (like an old, old world globe) set this playful and informative collection of travel verses apart. Author J. Patrick Lewis explores the world through unconventional poems and riddles, accompanied by illustrator Alison Jay's oil paintings, seen behind a delicate web of wiggly lines in antique-map shades of blue, tan, and green. The quirky verses feature exotic destinations, amazing explorers, and fascinating trivia about geography. (In "One Square Foot Per Person, Please," Lewis writes: "Did you know that all the people / in the world could stand shoulder / to shoulder in a space the size / of the Indonesian island of Bali? / And if they did? / How jolly!") Young readers who wonder why the Red Sea is red, where they can ride a bullet train, or what the difference is between latitude and longitude will get a mini education in this thoughtful and witty picture book. Lewis's previous titles include Doodle Dandies and A Book of Firsts, while Alison Jay's lovely illustrations can be found in Picture This and several others. (Ages 5 and older) --Emilie Coulter

About the Author:

J. Patrick Lewis earned his Ph.D. in Economics at The Ohio State University (1974) and taught at Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio until 1998. In 1972-73 he and his family spent the academic year in the former USSR, where Lewis completed his doctoral dissertation as an International Research and Exchanges (IREX) Fellow.

He has three children: Beth, Matt and Leigh Ann. The Lewises were the first family to be accepted on this the largest cultural exchange program between the U.S. and the USSR. Lewis returned to Moscow and other Soviet cities for shorter stays in 1977, 1982, 1987, August 1991(during the failed coup), 1993, 1995, 1997 and 1999.

Lewis has published extensively in the field of Economics. His articles and reviews have appeared in numerous academic journals, as well as The Nation, The Progressive, Technology Review, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Cleveland Plain Dealer and other newspapers and magazines. He has had seven short stories and over seventy poems published in literary journals. In 1991 he was awarded an Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Grant for his adult poetry.

He is now remarried and lives in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, with his wife Susan and step-children, Kelly and Scott Marceau. Lewis makes forty elementary school visits a year, keynotes at literature conferences, and presents teachers' workshops on introducing poetry in the classroom.

Lewis has also published twenty-five children's picture books to date (1/00), seventeen of them children's poetry. Ten more children's books have been accepted and are now in production at Simon & Schuster/Atheneum, Penguin Putnam/Dial, Alfred A. Knopf, Creative Editions, and DK Publishing.

His work for children has also appeared inMS. Magazine, Ranger Rick, Cricket, Spider, Ladybug, Highlights For Children, Your Big Backyard, Storyworks, Storytime, Chickadee (Canada), Ahoy (Canada), Book Links and over sixty anthologies. Lewis was commissioned to write the 1992 National Children's Book Week poem, which was printed on one million bookmarks and distributed nationally. He also reviews children's books for the New York Times.

About this edition

• Publisher: Dial Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0803725795
• ISBN 13: 9780803725799
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 48
• Illustrator: Jay Alison