Annotated Bibliography #2 forShipwreck at the Bottom of the World (2 books)

Armstrong, Jennifer. (1998). Photographs by Frank Hurley. Shipwreck at the bottom of
the world; the extraordinary true story of Shackleton and the
Endurance. New York: Scholastic. 134 pages. ISBN # 0-439-10992-2

Award: Orbis Pictus Winner, 1990

Grade level/s: 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th

Credibility of author: The author used books written by actual members of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition in writing the book. She acknowledged assistance from the Scott Polar Institute, in Cambridge, England where she examined library and archival material relating to the expedition including diaries, Captain Worsley’s logbook, and Frank Hurley’s original photographs.

Summary: This book details the horrifying and torturous Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition lead by Sir Ernest Shackleton in his quest to be the first to cross the Antarctica from one side to the other. The expedition lasted from 1914-1916. It begins with Shackleton’s recruitment efforts and continues through his ships entrapment and eventual destruction in ice, followed by the long journey back home. The entire expedition is described in detail, including the crews’ bouts with starvation, frostbite, and insanity and their close encounters with killer whales and icebergs.

Standards: National Social Studies Standard III and state competency #1

Illustrations and Graphics: Black and white photographs of various sizes are used throughout the book. There are flow maps showing movement of the crew of the Endurance on the ocean and ice. Two pages include copies of scaled-down original blueprint plans of Endurance.

Access features: Table of contents, chapter titles, acknowledgements, bibliography, subject index, author’s note

Use: This book would be great to integrate with a unit about explorers. Because it is written in chronological order, using this book as a read aloud and reading a chapter a day to students would be exciting to them. It could also be read independently.

Response: This book was full of descriptive details that made for an interesting read. Each chapter made you anxious for the next to see what the crew was going to encounter. When reading this book aloud to children, I think it would be best to break the reading up into smaller chunks rather than reading several chapters in one sitting. Reading too much at one time left me feeling mentally drained and somewhat depressed with the overload of so many bad events.

Related text: The Perilous Journey of the Donner Party by Marian Calabro is written for ages 9-12. It follows the same theme of struggle and survival against all odds.