Trial By Ice

by K.M. Kostyal

Book Overview

A biography of Sir Ernest Shackleton which includes details of his 1914 expedition to Antarctica which ended in a fight for survival. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0439199220
• ISBN13: 9780439199223
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: 2825074
• Length: 64 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A Classroom Assessment of Trail by Fire: A Photobiography

In searching for an additional reference material for a classroom unit on Sir Ernest Shackleton's journey to Antarctica in 1914, and planning on using photography as a middle school classroom project, the book Trail by Fire: A Photobiography of Sir Ernest Shackleton caught my attention. Photobiographies can have deep impacts on students with the plethora of pictures to help them absorb a great amount of information quickly for research purposes. The story itself fascinates, but the addition of Frank Hurley's fabulous black and white pictures astonishes. K.M.Kostyal succeeds by providing excellent text to accompany the photographs: concise, easy to understand, good context definitions of new vocabulary for those unfamiliar with ships and Antarctic travel, and neatly bracketed around Hurley's works. The addition of Shackleton's quotes to introduce sections is very powerful. For many students, just reading the captions to the photographs will open new thinking about the trials Shackleton's crew faced while trying to reach first one goal, then another, which eventually was to just survive in the freezing, punishing elements. If there is one criticism for this book, it is with the map. First it is located at the end of the book, when it would serve the reader better to be either first, or near the beginning. Secondly, it has few of the places mentioned in the text, and I found myself having to refer to a more detailed map from another source to find all the places Kostyal includes. Coming under the umbrella of the National Geographic Society as it does, this is curious. But map critique aside, this book will provide my students with an excellent model for their own personal photobiographies as well as assist them in researching Shackleton's incredible Antarctic sojourn. Well done, K.M. Kostyal!