Managing the Land

Children's Literature

Everything comes back to the earth. Plastic comes from oil or coal mined from Earth's crust. Rubber comes from a tree grown in the soil, and concrete comes from limestone and sand dug out of the Earth's crust. In this well-written installment of the "Our World: Our Future" series, Dalgleish starts with basic geological sciences and moves on to the issues of population growth, smart agriculture, and soil degradation. While not going into a lot of details, she does cover many of basic problems, if few of the solutions that are being worked on worldwide. A simple project asks the reader to create a landfill garden, getting hands-on experience in the dirt. Like others in the series, this book has boxed messages on each page, titled "Stop & Think," "Show Me," or 'You Can Do It!" The boxes bring the information to the reader's personal level. For example, in a section addressing global warming, the box suggests that readers plant a tree to absorb carbon dioxide. The layout is attractive with the boxes, pictures and captions, and the main text all given enough space for easy reading. Included are sections titled Think Globally and Sustaining Our World as well as a glossary and an index. 2002, Chelsea House Publishers, Hansen