Antarctic Journal

A gifted storyteller and nature observer shares a rare adventure in letters and illustration. Science author/illustrator Dewey (Rattlesnake Dance, 2000, etc.) spent four months in Antarctica as part of a National Science Foundation grant. The journal entries, letters, sketches, and photographs she sent to her family and friends have been gathered here in a lively, humorous, true-life science adventure that will capture the imagination of would-be scientists and armchair travelers alike. There are appealing colored-pencil sketches of Antarctic animals on every page, along with photographs and maps. Letters describe both humorous events (like the curious penguins of Litchfield Island coming to snatch her typewriter paper) as well as dangerous ones (she fell into a crevasse of a glacier up to her shoulders, and "stared below into a blue-green hole cut with facets like a diamond"). Beauty, danger, and awe are evident throughout. Not to be confused with Meredith Hooper's Antarctic Journal (2000). (bibliography) (Nonfiction. 8-12)