The Longitude Prize : The Race Between The Moon & The Watch-Machine

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful children's book about navigation
Review: "The Longitude Prize," by Joan Dash, is a wonderful book for children, 9 to 12 years old, about the 18th century race for an accurate method of determining a ship's longitude. The author makes history come alive and explains how Britain's Parliament offered a prize of 20,000 pounds (equal to $12 million today) to anyone who found an accurate method of determining longitude at sea. As Mrs. Dash explains, the prize went unclaimed for fifty years. During that time, two competing systems arose for finding longitude; one was supported by scientists and astronomers, based on the movement of the moon. The other method was created by a village carpenter, John Harrison, using a seagoing clock. John Harrison was self-educated and had no formal credentials, so the Board of Longitude fought him "tooth and nail," when he offered his chronometer and claimed the prize. Mrs. Dash makes the race for the prize an exciting one. She shows the historical framework of shipwrecks, politics, voyages of exploration, and John Harrison's persistence against great odds, and (quoting the book jacket) "his lifelong struggle for recognition of a brilliant invention." My 10-year-old son loved this book!

Rating:
Summary: Great Book!!!
Review: "The Longitude Prize," by Joan Dash, is a wonderful book for children, 9 to 12 years old, about the 18th century race for an accurate method of determining a ship's longitude. The author makes history come alive and explains how Britain's Parliament offered a prize of 20,000 pounds (equal to $12 million today) to anyone who found an accurate method of determining longitude at sea. As Mrs. Dash explains, the prize went unclaimed for fifty years. During that time, two competing systems arose for finding longitude; one was supported by scientists and astronomers, based on the movement of the moon. The other method was created by a village carpenter, John Harrison, using a seagoing clock. John Harrison was self-educated and had no formal credentials, so the Board of Longitude fought him "tooth and nail," when he offered his chronometer and claimed the prize. Mrs. Dash makes the race for the prize an exciting one. She shows the historical framework of shipwrecks, politics, voyages of exploration, and John Harrison's persistence against great odds, and (quoting the book jacket) "his lifelong struggle for recognition of a brilliant invention." My 10-year-old son loved this book!

Rating:
Summary: Great Book!!!
Review: A hugely captivating book, Dash conveys the wonderfully interesting and historically important tale with magnitude but truly gets the point across. For all you people that don't normally read non-fiction books, and to the people that do, I strongly suggest you read this book!

Rating:
Summary: The Longitude Prize is a Prize
Review: I am informing you that your listing is incorrest: the book cannot be out of stock, because it is not yet printed: it is expected to be out in September 2000. This is not a review.