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Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas

Author: Visit Amazon's Jim Ottaviani Page | Language: English | ISBN: 1596438657 | Format: PDF

Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas Description

From Booklist

Ottaviani’s latest, after Feynman (2011), manages to compress the fascinating stories of three groundbreaking scientists—Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas—into a slim volume without skimping on their rich characters and joyful discoveries. Thanks to Wicks’ colorful, lively, Hergé-like art, each scientist (and primate) has a distinct personality, but it’s the depictions of the animals—emerging from lush, leafy backgrounds or lolling in trees—that steal the show. A chimp mugs to the viewer with a boastful, precocious grin, for instance, after Goodall observes it using a tool to forage for food. For all the playful mugging and gratifying discoveries, though, Ottaviani doesn’t shy away from the struggles of living and working in the bush. Presented as dedicated, iconoclastic, and profoundly in awe of the creatures around them, Goodall, Fossey, and Galdikas are inspiring figures, and Ottaviani does a first-rate job of dangling enough tantalizing tidbits to pique readers’ interest in the topic. The actual science is a bit light, but an author’s note strongly encourages further reading and includes resources. Grades 9-12. --Sarah Hunter

Review

Praise for Feynman:

"Splendid." —The Miami Herald

"Entertaining and informative." —Science

"Lovely." —Newsday

"Captures the jazzy flow of Feynman’s life in its spare lines." —USA Today

"These images capture with remarkable sensitivity the essence of Feynman’s character. The comic-book picture somehow comes to life and speaks with the voice of the real Feynman." —Freeman Dyson, The New York Review of Books

Praise for Primates:

"An accessible introduction to Goodall’s, Fossey’s and Galdikas’ lives and work." -- Kirkus Reviews

"A graphic format admirably propels this lightly fictionalized group biography." -- The Horn Book

"Presented as dedicated, iconoclastic, and profoundly in awe of the creatures around them, Goodall, Fossey, and Galdikas are inspiring figures, and Ottaviani does a first-rate job of dangling enough tantalizing tidbits to pique readers’ interest in the topic." -- Booklist

"The story of how each of these women loved primates and lived among them to study their behavior is compelling, and might inspire a whole new generation of scientists to follow in their footsteps." -- School Library Journal

"This is an inviting introduction that will undoubtedly lure many readers into further investigation of this groundbreaking fieldwork." -- BCCB

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details
Table of Contents
Reviews

Age Range: 12 - 18 years
Grade Level: 7 and up
Hardcover: 144 pages
Publisher: First Second (June 11, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1596438657
ISBN-13: 978-1596438651
Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.3 x 0.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Having just read Endangered by Eliot Schrefer, it seemed fortuitous that I would wander into a local bookstore to find this little gem facing out at me from a shelf in the children's department. Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birute Galdikas is a graphic, slightly fictionalized history of the three women who started with Louis Leakey and transformed the world's knowledge of the great apes.

Jane Goodall is probably the most well known of these three women, and she was the first woman Leakey was successful in sending to study the great apes. When his former secretary wasn't successful with the chimpanzees (or terribly interested), Goodall, a woman with no formal degree or experience in conducting such a study, was sent. It was there that she conducted some of the most groundbreaking research ever done on the chimpanzees.

Dian Fossey didn't wait for Leakey to discover her, she hunted him down and demanded to be sent to study the mountain gorillas. Leakey, still convinced women are better at this kind of research, put her study together and sent her. It was there that the gorillas became the life and death of Dian Fossey. Her refusal to back down from dangerous people's protection of the poaching of the gorillas was her undoing, but even in death, she is a champion for these beautiful animals.

Birute Galdikas is the least known of these three women. Having come to Leakey after Fossey and Goodall, she was most interested in the illusive orangutans. Lucky for these creatures, their ability to fade into the mist also made them difficult to hunt, which was a protection in and of itself. Galdikas herself was as illusive as her orangutans, but the research she gathered is still unmatched.

Honestly, it was an OK book. I did not feel that it was anything spectacular. Nothing new was brought to the table, but as a summary of the lives of three impressive women, it was moderately successful. I say moderately, since each individual was given roughly 40 pages of a graphic novel to tell who they were, how they got there, how they first adapted in the jungle, one or two of their revelations, and an aftermath of sorts. Frankly, 40 pages of a graphic novel to cram all that information is not enough and does not do their stories justice. And a good portion of that 40 page summary was used for transitions to connect the stories and talk about how they got the job; Which I approve of since there is nothing worse than a choppy story, but therefore meant that there was even less content in the book itself. It was a good simple summary and I liked how the stories were connected, but I just can not help but wish it was longer so that I could learn more about the primates, their work with the primates and what they pioneered! Sadly, the majority of this book was set outside of the jungle.

I believe that this book is meant to be directed for a younger audience because this book is very short (I read it in roughly an hour), the reading level was low, and I found the book to not be as descriptive/informative as I thought it should be. They had to cut out many scenes to squeeze each biography in 40 pages, and did not have the opportunity to go into much detail as to what these brilliant women actually pioneered.

My biggest quirk was probably how often they alluded to their boss's unfaithfulness with his wife. The author is extremely limited in space for the novel, and each page and panel is crucial.

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