Nancy Roe PimmBesprekingen

Excellent short bio of an interesting woman. Made for teenagers, with a good glossary, short chapters, lots of photos. For an adult, a nice overview of her historic flight, and a good companion for Jerrie's "Three Eight Charlie."

Even though this was intended for children, I learned quite a bit from it myself. The books introduces children interested in professional auto racing to all aspects of the Indy 500-- its history, facts about the race itself, requirements for the cars, the engine, tires, cockpit, how fit the driver must be, crashes, the pit stop, and the various flags used. The book also has a bibliography for further reading.

I met this author in May 2010 when she came to our local library to promote this book and talk about her experiences with her husband who had raced in the Indy 500 3 years, placing 9th in 1985 and she was in his pit crew. She had a lot of equipment with her that her husband had used-- either on himself or part of his car. She was fascinating to listen to!

In the early 1950's, the Columbus zoo in Ohio received three young gorillas. At that moment, they had the most gorillas of any zoo in the US, and there were only 60 of the animals in the country. Little was known about how to care for them, but the zookeepers did their best with the new rare creatures. A few years later, the keepers knew their female gorilla was pregnant, and on December 22, 1956, baby Colo was discovered on the cold concrete floor near her mother, who had no idea what to do with this baby. The keepers took her, revived her, and kept her warm and fed, all the while documenting every possible detail of little Colo's life in order to learn about baby gorillas. The news of the first gorilla baby in captivity spread fast -- the mayor handed out cigars labeled "It's a Girl!" and magazines and television shows called for interviews and pictures. This wonderful nonfiction book is partly the story of Colo's life at the zoo, and partly the story of how care and housing for gorillas has changed to reflect what researchers and zookepers have learned about the animals. Easy to read without "talking down" to the reader, this has high quality pictures and an incredible amount of information in its 78 pages, as well as an introduction by Jack Hanna, director of the Columbus Zoo and well-known wildlife conservationist. Great for anyone who loves animals!

Review copy from Lerner PublishingA combination of a history of the Daytona 500 race, and the history of NASCAR, this is a high-octane read for all the racing fans out there! I liked this for two reasons: the design of the book, which breaks the chapters into stories of races and events with lots of well-placed sidebars packed with interesting facts, and the pictures: images of races, crashes, photo finishes, pit crews, racecars, equipment and tools. The race stories were sometimes funny, sometimes wild and crazy, and sometimes tragic. Racing is a risky sport after all, and Pimm follows the development of better safety equipment, especially the Cars Inside and Out chapter. I now know more than I ever thought I would about racecar design and safety features, including how the driver's seat is custom-molded to his or her own behind! There are famous names in racing: Mario Andretti, Bobby Allison, Richard Petty, Darrell Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt, as well as many names in history who are no longer well known, but are still important to racing history. The stories were well chosen for showing how and why racing has changed over these many years, and the writing was engaging. Bonus points for anyone who finds the part that was an important scene in the Disney movie Cars! 6th grade and up.