Where on Earth? Geography as you’ve never seen it before! by DK Publishing.

Review by Joel Gould
Genre: Informational Text

31 people including editors, designers, illustrators, cartographers, researchers, produced this book. Accordingly, the richness and polish of the information presentation reflect the ambition of this endeavor.  For $13, on Amazon.com, this large-format, hardcover book, feels like a bargain.

In addition to focused section introductions, this book includes 80 two-page maps of the world, each presenting a particular topic, with corresponding graphs and text. This is similar in spirit to the global maps at the front of traditional atlases - color-coded to show how precipitation, temperature, and climate, correspond to geography. I spent many rainy days pouring over these pages as a child, trying to compare my corner of the world to others.

This book slices global conditions, experiences, and phenomena into fascinating subtopics, such as invasive species, internet connectivity, skyscrapers, political revolutions, volcanoes, garbage, etc. The maps are not only graphically sophisticated (think of the modern incarnation of the Guinness Book of World Records), they also to contribute to understanding:  Colored arrows show the direction and depth of ocean currents, bird migration routes, and the paths of infectious diseases. Statues and buildings stand in proportional relief above the page.

The simple turn of a page also demands connections be made between the maps.  How do the contours of the tectonic plates correspond to the epicenters of earthquakes, the locations of mountains, and volcanoes? (They are very related, for now obvious reasons).   Do the locations and size of gold mines geographically correspond to the number of billionaires and the amount of garbage and waste produced in the world? (It sure looks like it...).

For late primary and middle school classrooms looking for resources to build schema for reading and understanding, Where on Earth? Geography as you’ve never seen it before, would make a great addition. Know-it-alls, information junkies, and the casually curious will gladly spend hours flipping through this treasure trove of information. You can pick it up for a few minutes and quickly understand an important cross-section of our complicated world, or you can lose yourself for hours and wonder at how we are all connected and affected by global dynamics.

Houston, R. (Senior editor), Letsu P. (Senior art editor), Mumford, S. (Senior cartographic editor) (2013) Where on Earth? Geography as you’ve never seen it before! DK Publishing, New York NY