Born in 1451 in the seafaring nation of Genoa in northern Italy, Christopher Columbus grew up watching ships sail into the harbor loaded with riches from Egypt, Spain, England, and Belgium. Columbus was convinced that he could gain gold, silk, ivory, and much personal wealth for himself if he were to sail west from Europe to the East and trade with China and India. When Queen Isabella of Castile and King Ferdinand of Aragon finally provided him with three ships, a crew, and supplies for his journey, Columbus embarked on the first of four voyages to the East in 1492. Although he never reached Asia, he did land in Central and South America, establishing a firm foothold in America and opening up wider European exploration to the new continent and other foreign lands.
Demi portrays Columbus as a great navigator and explorer, but she also provides a balanced view of his accomplishments, describing his enslavement of the native Taino Indians of Central America and his mismanagement of the colonies that he established in the Indies. Using Chinese paintbrushes and inks, gold overlays, and Italian marbled paper from Florence, Italy, she paints Columbus’s vast world with characteristic skill and beauty.
I am fasting coming to respect and truly enjoy these picture books from Demi, although I am discovering there are tons of them and they seem to come from all sorts of different publishers. This book is a picture book biography with lots of text and information about the man we know as Christopher Columbus, it was interesting and stood out odd to me thinking of him as Christopher to find his siblings all with very Italian names, and it was at the same moment my husband was telling me the trivia of his real name an italian version of it. This book is gorgeous that cannot be debated. But what is really neat is how this book seems to give more details than I have ever really known about his life from the beginning and early childhood until the day he dies. This book allows a reader to follow along his entire American adventure back and forth across the ocean eight times and then even in death seemingly four times. Columbus by Demi is not just positive or just negative, but a good measure of both showing a truth about the man and how he did some evil things but also found a great power to lean his life toward in remorse, or at least that is the story that I read in the pages. It seemingly is the truth about history in general. There are many terrible things and events that changed our world and got us to where we are, but the bad often works in times for things that are good. I enjoyed this one and I look forward to reading more biographical books from Demi in the future.
*Thanks to Amazon Vine for providing a copy for review.*
scheduled: http://creativemadnessmama.com/blog/2012/11/10/columbus-by-demi/
Reading updates
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23 October, 2012:
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23 October, 2012:
Reviewed