Product Description
The Cat in the Hat introduces beginning readers to maps–the different kinds (city, state, world, topographic, temperature, terrain, etc.); their formats (flat, globe, atlas, puzzle); the tools we use to read them (symbols, scales, grids, compasses); and funny facts about the places they show us (“Michigan looks like a scarf and a mitten! Louisiana looks like a chair you can sit in!”). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Great book, more in-depth than others of the Seussian genre
This book was basically great, although some of the Dr. Seuss-style rhyming was just a tad confusing in the map-reading examples. I'd recommend adults read it over first, and if you are reading to--or with--kids who aren't familiar with the Seuss style, just skip over some of the names. Other kids may enjoy that part.

Overall this is a great book on map reading. Parents may want to read it with their kids before going on a road trip, have them practice some map-reading skills at home (including a blueprint-style map of the rooms in their home), then try to find some very simple maps for the kids to read on the road, depending on their ages.

This summer we organized some day camps to help young family members learn to read, which included numerous treasure hunts to practice reading skills. On the final day we read this book, then the big blowout treasure hunt led them to a hidden bag of puzzle pieces. When they put the puzzle together, it was a map of a couple rooms in our house, with red arrows pointing to the location of their next clue. The kids loved it (and they didn't mind the treasure chest full of little prizes after the final clue either)! I think it reinforced how much they could learn by reading books, and how they could put that knowledge to use.

I haven't seen many kids' books that teach map reading, so this is a great addition to a child's library, especially if you help them follow up with some practice. We females tend to have brains that don't automatically process maps, so this may be especially helpful for young girls--if they're anything like me, anyway!

Great Book!
I love this book for my 6 year old!He really enjoys reading it and it teaches him the basics of different map readings.I love the series of these books from Tish Rabe, since they are educational unlike other Dr. Seuss books.

Very informative, but a little wordy for the target age
I bought this book for the Social Studies department where I work.The first grade teacher has used it and said she loved it.It has to be broken down and analyzed in sections because to do the whole book at once would be an informational overload for the age group that Dr. Seuss targets.I used the book for my 6th graders and it was just funny and kiddish enough to be really engaging.I'm very glad I purchased it.

Good, not great
I love, love Dr. Seuss books.My 3 children and I have read them all.Even the ones you have never heard of.I appreciate the effort, but there is much lacking for it to be called a genuine Dr. Seuss book.The boys like it, but it is not one they pull off the shelf to read.They would rather "The Cat in the Hat", or "Green Eggs and Ham" (or any of the others).
It has to be my idea to read this one.
I do realize that it is a non-fiction book, but the rhythm & some of the rhymes just don't work.I think they could have done a little more to make it "sing-song".That's what makes a Seuss book!

Great for young children
This is a fun book for introducing young children to maps.I will use it in my early childhood classroom but I wish I'd had it when my own chldren were young.They would have loved it! ... Read more

Product Description
The Tyndale Handbook of Bible Charts & Maps features over 400 charts and 200 maps useful to any Bible student or teacher. The pages are perforated for easy removal and fully reproducible for classroom use. This is the only handbook of charts and maps on the market that includes a CD containing full-color maps and the complete text of the New Living Translation.

Teachers, pastors, and anyone wanting to learn more about the Bible will rely on the Tyndale Reference Library for solid, evangelical scholarship packed into concise, user-friendly reference works. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (11)

excellent referance
I haven't even looked at the cd yet and I am in love with this book its everything its cracked up to be

Best of the bunch
I had been looking for a good book of reproducible Bible maps and charts for use in Bible Classes for a while. The reviews I read were pretty sketchy, so I finally bit the bullet and bought three different books by three different companies: Regal, Nelson, and Tyndale. None of them were bad, but one stood out as the best.

Regal's "What the Bible Is All About: Reproducible Maps, Charts, Timelines, & Illustrations" was basically just the same maps, charts, etc. that are in NIV Study Bibles, plus some illustrations suitable for a children's Sunday School class. While the perforated pages were nice, it was generally not what I was looking for.

"Nelson's Complete Book of Bible Maps & Charts" was trying too hard to do too many things. It has some decent maps and charts, but an awful lot of the book is consumed with Bible commentary and outlines. I already have textual commentaries... I really wasn't looking for more. Add to that the fact that it's difficult to get a clean photocopy/scan out of the book, and the whole thing was rather disappointing.

"The Tyndale Handbook of Bible Charts and Maps" was absolutely perfect for my needs. It has lots of material. The maps are clear and easy to read. The charts cover useful topics that you will likely want to cover in an adult Bible class. And the sections of commentary are presented in condensed tables suitable for handouts or teaching from. Best of all, the accompanying CD includes high-resolution PDF's of the ENTIRE book. You can print out a crystal clear copy of any page, or cut/paste any element into Powerpoint without the hassle of tearing out pages, making photocopies, or scanning into the computer. Simply put, this book is the PERFECT Bible Class resource for any pastor or teacher.

Great Book
The Tyndale Handbook of Bible Charts and Maps is a wonderful book. I actually purchase this book, because my Pastor and Asst. Pastor has this book to help them study. I really love this book, because the charts and graphs are really helpful in helping me study my bible. And, I must say that the CD is a plus!!!

None
Fine book! What a nice experience. The book was in great condition, and received it in a short amount of time. Would definitely order from them again.

Gift Item
This book was very good for what they wanted.Very nice to use in classes. ... Read more

Product Description
Two centuries after the Lewis and Clark Expedition comes this collection of early North American maps that preceded and influenced the exploration. Lewis and Clark: The Maps of Exploration 1507-1814 features 32 maps, including the 1810 map drawn by William Clark. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Schools need this
This wonderful book reminds us all that there was life before GPS, and people really just had to stumble around before they got their geography right. There just wasn't the tech. Most important, that affected history, and critical political thinking of the times. Can you imagine Thomas Jeffersons guess about what was really the Louisianna Purchase? Just how big was America?

Nice maps, but could use more details....
This is a great collection of selected maps from history -- my favorite is the one of a skinny North America, with the Pacific Ocean right on the other side of the Appalachains.The title is somewhat misleading, since the book is mostly a compilation of the maps that were published well before the Lewis and Clark expedition.The descriptions of each map are brief, and the author often references other maps that aren't included in the book; I find myself really wanting to see one depiction of the world or another that's described but not presented.Overall this is a pretty cool book, though, especially if you've never seen some of these old maps. ... Read more

Product Description
San Francisco in Maps documents the evolution of this fascinating and beautiful city through 72 breathtaking antiquarian maps, spanning four centuries.The gorgeous maps, many of them hand colored and rarely seen, bring alivethe history of this vibrant city. These maps range from the early days when they served to aid ship navigation of this unfamiliar and frequently foggy harbor; to the gold rush era in the mid-1800s, when the city's population grew exponentially and it saw the beginnings of neighborhoods like Chinatown, many of which persist to today; to the period before and after the great earthquake of 1906, which destroyed 80 percent of the city, and from out of which modern San Francisco emerged. ... Read more

Product Description

The famous Hereford world map, the ‘Mappa Mundi,’ dates from around 1300, and was painted on one skin of calf-parchment, less than 1 mm thick and measuring about 130 cm square. When we read of its frequent ordeals we may marvel that it is still in good condition and can be examined. Yet it is by no means the oldest surviving mappamundi, nor was it the largest: the Ebstorf map (destroyed by bombing in 1943) was of similar age and almost three times bigger.

Mappaemundi may be square or round, large or small, extremely simple or amazingly complex. Their geography is unfamiliar and many of their fauna are grotesque. Their importance is enormous: for their encyclopaedic ambition, for their place in devotional and romanesque iconography and for their attempts to document contemporary world views.

In setting the Hereford world map in context, P.D.A. Harvey and his twenty-four collaborators introduce us to medieval ideas of the world and man’s place in it, in ways that will excite historians, geographers, students of art history, theologians, and anyone interested in the medieval world view.

Product Description

Customer Reviews (1)

A wondrous map

Three years ago, I purchased a wonderful replica of the Gough Map of Great Britain from the Bodleian Library shop. It is incredibly detailed and came with a brochure that described many of its features. The Bodleian has been digitizing the original map, and this book shows a projection of a modern map of Great Britain over the the Gough Map. It also features a fold out print of the map, significantly better than the replica I purchased, and many detailed images. I'm sorry that Amazon doesn't permit inserting links to outside resources, but you will find the Queen's or Bodleian Map Room website acts as a very useful footnote to this book. Nick Millea, the author writes that research on the Gough Map will continue and will be made public there.

Millea is map librarian at Oxford University's Bodleian Library. In a recent interview he said: "The Gough Map is the first modern map of Britain and the oldest surviving map which shows the coastline in recognizable form. All previous maps gave a theological interpretation, showing how Britain fitted into the Christian world. The Hereford Mappa Mundi from approximately the same time has Jerusalem as the center of the world. Geography just wasn't important."

The Gough Map was drawn in pen, ink and colored washes on two skins of vellum. It measures almost four feet long by two feet wide. A collector named Gough bought it in 1774 for half a crown and donated it to the Bodleian Library in 1809. The identity of the mapmaker or mapmakers is unknown; clues to its date come from place names that have changed over time, and from studies of the hand used to inscribe those names onto the map.

There is no record of any similar medieval map at such scale or accuracy. The Gough Map shows countless hills, mountains, lakes, New Forest, Sherwood Forest, and even Hadrian's Wall (labelled "murus pictorum", the Picts' Wall). More than 600 settlements, almost 200 rivers, and almost 3,000 miles of red lines are shown. London and York are in gold and other places like Bristol, Chester, Gloucester, Lincoln, Norwich, Oxford, Salisbury and Winchester are lavishly illustrated.

Although the map is undated, certain features provide clues to its original date. The construction of Coventry's town walls is instructive - work was begun in 1355 and a wall does appear. The settlement of Sheppey became Queenborough in 1366, but is still marked as 'Shephey', which suggests an 11-year dating window. The style of the handwritten place names also suggests the mid- to late fourteenth century.

The map is the first to depict the coastline of Great Britain in a recognizable form. Scotland is not recognizable; apparently the mapmakers had little knowledge of that area. The Clyde and Forth and Edinburgh are recognizable, but the rest of Scotland doesn't match a modern mapping. Millea believes the Gough Map was created at a time when Scotland was a foreign country and little was known about it so the mapmakers simply guessed.

Whatever their knowledge of Scotland, the mapmakers' knowledge of the rest of the island was extraordinary. One wonders about many aspects of this map, not least how it was put together. Did they draw the outline of the coast and then fill in the details? Or did they start with a particular area and then work out? How could the map be so accurate given the technical resources then available?

Millea indicates that the map was created in a single hand, but clearly one person couldn't have done all the necessary research, even if it was based on an earlier map as Millea suggests. I would love to know more about the dynamics of the mapmaker team, but perhaps that human element is now lost.

I plan to consult this wonderful book from time to time for pleasure, and visit the websites to learn about new information as it is discovered. Nick Millea writes there is much yet to learn about this wonderful map.

Robert C. Ross ... Read more

Product Description
The Island of Lost Maps tells the story of a curious crime spree: the theft of scores of valuable centuries-old maps from some of the most prominent research libraries in the United States and Canada. The perpetrator was Gilbert Joseph Bland, Jr., an enigmatic antiques dealer from South Florida, whose cross-country slash-and-dash operation had gone virtually undetected until he was caught in 1995–and was unmasked as the most prolific American map thief in history. As Miles Harvey unravels the mystery of Bland’s life, he maps out the world of cartography and cartographic crime, weaving together a fascinating story of exploration, craftsmanship, villainy, and the lure of the unknown.
Amazon.com Review
In 1995, a watchful patron alerted a librarian at Johns Hopkins University that another patron, a middle-aged and well-dressed man, was behaving suspiciously. The librarian called the police, who discovered that the man, a Floridian named Gilbert Bland, had cut four maps from a set of rare books. On investigation, the police were able to attribute dozens of similar thefts to Bland, thefts that had taken place at a score of the country's best-regarded--and, presumably, best-protected--scholarly institutions.

Like countless other readers, Miles Harvey, a writer for Outside magazine, encountered the news of Bland's arrest as a brief item in the back pages of the morning newspaper. The story stayed with Harvey, who wondered why otherwise law-abiding people behave so badly around antiquities. In The Island of Lost Maps, a wonderfully rich excursion into the demimonde of what might be called cartographomania, Harvey follows Bland's tracks from library to library, reconstructing the crimes of the man he deems the Al Capone of map theft, following the contours of Bland's complex, sinister character. Along the way, Harvey examines the history of cartography generally, and the ravenous market for old maps--once the quiet province of a few knowing collectors, now invaded by speculators. These maps are just another corner of the overpriced status-symbol commodity market--and one that richly rewarded Bland's nefarious work.

Harvey's winding narrative, full of learned detours, adds up to a superbly rendered tale of true crime (and, many readers might object, of insufficient punishment), one that will appeal to book lovers and mystery buffs in equal measure. --Gregory McNamee ... Read more

Customer Reviews (89)

Not great, but OK if you like the subject matter.
Too many sidetracked stories about himself.He talks about a huge collection of Bland files, but not very much is written about him.I would have liked to have seen what he had collected on Bland over the four years he said it took him to write this book.

Also, he mentions other map thiefs but only in very brief.One paragraph on each.He probably could have written about those other contemporary map thiefs instead of writing about himself and his travels and trials & tribulations related to writing the book.

A Favorite
Thank you. This is a favorite read and I wanted to shar4e it with some friends.

Island of Lost Maps
The best parts of this book are the insights into the map making business - one that I know very little about.However, given that the author was not able to interview Bland, all of the author's conjecture about the crimes and Bland's motives seriously weakened the book for me.

Fascinating subject derailedby self-indulgent author
This is totally the sort of book I'd go for: arcane and quirky. I adore the subject. Yet Harvey's hopeless writing makes a mess of things. I beg to differ with the review who calls this book "exquisitely written." It's full of verbiage, hyperbolic prose, overstuffed with description, and it just gets on your nerves. Case in point: "the winds of doom seemed to be shrieking through that library, swirling and shrieking." A tad melodramatic, maybe? Just maybe?

Just when Harvey starts sticking to his subject, and the story gets interesting again, he derails it with some self-indulgent, totally uninteresting discussion of his personal life, or waxes eloquent about Greek myth. You can seem him trying to be snappy and catchy with his prose, but it just end up as useless melodrama.

Obviously the author has a knack for finding good stories, but he needs to take himself less seriously as a writer, because he's not nearly as good as he thinks he is.

Read the article instead
I was drawn to this book by its title: The Island of Lost Maps. So evocative. And then, of course, the subtitle brings in the promise of a crime story.

If you are an insatiable lover of maps, this is the book for you. If you have a passable interest in geography, you also might enjoy portions of this book. But... if you want the crime story, read the article (Mr. Bland's Evil Plot to Control the World) here: http://outside.away.com/outside/magazine/0697/9706bland.html.

I am in awe of Mr. Harvey as a journalist. A well-researched, tightly crafted article with a driving narrative arc gets my vote any day over a flabby, doesn't-know-what-it-wants-to-be book. This book reads like a data dump, and when the author exhausts his notebooks, he throws in a little whiny personal memoir.

The only part of the book that spoke to my heart was the section on Graham Arader, the map dealer who made a practice of "book breaking" to turn a profit in the antique map business. The very idea of ripping pages out of irreplaceable books for profit was bone-chilling to me. Anyone who does that has no moral ground on Gilbert Bland, the map thief. ... Read more

Product Description
Eighteen map spreads present information about where the various peoples of the world live. ... Read more

Product Description
THIS EDITION IS INTENDED FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. Explores how maps have evolved through the ages and how maps are made today. Features vivid color photographs and maps with lively captions. ... Read more

Product Description
Discusses how to interpret and use the information found on maps. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (5)

I take issue with these negative reviews
They are right to point out that the images in the map are not in color, and are not as legible as one might like, but they are mistaken to find fault with the book for these reasons.This is not an atlas of literary maps, but, as the authors put it, a "cartobibliography" of literary maps.An atlas can be expected to provide high-quality reproductions of the maps it includes, because it is meant to stand in for the originals.A cartobibliography does not pretend to do so.It is meant as a guide for readers and researchers who are eager to identify maps that they will then consult at the appropriate library or archive.Many cartobibliographies do not even include images.This one does, but they are clearly meant only to give you a good idea of what the map is like, so that you can decide whether or not to go tothe trouble of chasing it down.The fact that this cartobibliography includes so many images, and that they are all clear and well annotated, makes this an excellent cartobibliography. Know, however, that this is what you're buying, not an atlas.

THANK YOU AMAZON
I saw an article on this book in CIVILIZATION magazine and looked forward to buying it. Just as I was about to call the Library of Congress and order it, I thought I would check Amazon. Thankfully, Amazon reviewers noted theconspicuous shortcomings of this expensive book. Thank you, Amazon forsaving me money. Buy the magazine - all the maps are in color.

A good idea --- poorly executed
This is not the first book of literary maps I've seen.I an a former junior high school librarian and had several in my reference section.When I saw the ad for this book I thought it would be the definitive book of thetype.It isn't.All but a few of the maps are printed in black and white. By the time the maps were reduced small enough to fit on the page, theywere pretty much too small to read.Save your money.

Now I know why this book wasn't reviewed by Booklist
How sad that someone would go to all this effort to puttogether something that is basically useless.The print on the mapsis too small to read.All but 20 of the 278 pages of maps are in black and white.I thought I'd be getting something that my grandchildren could use as they were coming up through the years. There is always something about having a map that intrigues all of us, and adds a little bit more to our imaginations. When I was a junior high school librarian, I had several books of literary maps. Unfortunately, I don't remember their names.The students just loved them.Save your money on this one.

This is a rich reference for lovers of literary landscapes--
Although one wishes for the full-size maps from the original exhibit, this book is the next best thing, providing a wealth of maps, with detailed, informative notes about each of them.I live in a state without a literarymap, so I hope this book will inspire someone to produce one as attractiveas Georgia's, for example.It is fun just to browse through and discoversurprises, such as the startling Ian Fleming Thriller Map, or An AncientMappe of Fairyland, or the map of Homer's "Odyssey" in the shapeof the British Isles, or Franz Kafka's Prague.Of course Shakespeare iswell represented, and so are Tolkien and Mark Twain, as well as severalRussian authors.A quotation from "Moby Dick" introduces thesection on imaginary worlds: "It was not on any map.Real placesnever are."There I found Paul Bunyan's pictorial map of the UnitedStates, where, with the help of a magnifying glass, I was well entertainedwith accounts of his exploits.I like the layout of the book and thecarefully-researched explanations throughout. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more