Map Parts

Children's Literature - Marilyn Courtot

Discover the fascinating world of maps. Max tells readers that he has learned all about maps in school. He notes that maps are representations of places and the variety seems endless. Max starts with his bedroom and then draws a map of his house. This map, like others, has a title. It also contains a compass rose showing north, south, east, and west. Many maps have labels to identify important places, and most have a legend instead of labels. The legend tells what the symbols or colors mean. Another part of most maps is a scale, which tells the ratio between the distance from points on a map to the actual distance between those locations. Maps can be large-scale—showing a small area in detail or small-scale—showing much larger areas. Maps, as noted, can show vast amounts of information, such as highway or road systems, national parks, cities, rivers and lakes, and much, much more. Max has taken us from his bedroom in his house in his town, which is in New York State and has shown where this state is relative to the other states in his vicinity. Max helps readers by showing even more—he places the United States on its continent and our continent of North America is shown as part of the world. Since the world we know as Earth is round, a globe is the best presentation, but globes do not easily fit into pockets. Maps are printed flat, even though they distort the size and placement of countries and continents, because they can fold flat and fit in a pocket. There is a brief mention of longitude and latitude, a physical map of the world, and more examples, including a recap of where Max lives. The index and glossary are found on the last page. This book is part of the "Allover the map" series. Reviewer: Marilyn Courtot