|
Bodies from the
Ash by James
M. Deem tells
the story of the victims of Pompeii.
After Mt.
Vesuvius erupted on August 24 and 25, AD 79, Pompeii lay buried under 12
feet of volcanic ash and debris for the next 1700 years. Some attempts were
made to excavate the town, but no one was certain of its exact location.
Finally, in the mid-1700s, the town was rediscovered. Along with the desired
treasures (statues, marble, jewelry) that excavators sought for wealthy
patrons, workers also uncovered many skeletons of people who could not
escape. At first, these skeletons were placed in locations within the
Pompeian ruins as curiosity objects. Later, under the direction of Giuseppe
Fiorelli, the hollow space around some skeletons was used as a mold. Workers
poured plaster of Paris into the cavity; when the outer shell of the
mold was chipped away, the plaster body of a person remained—an imprint of
that person’s last moment alive.
By
studying these individuals and the possessions that they had with them,
Fiorelli and later scientists attempted to piece together their stories. Bodies
from the Ash describes what they have found and the stories they
have told. Approximately 50 photographs illustrate the book, many of them
rare and many from the photography archives of the Pompeii Archaeological
Site. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
Best
Books for Young Adults 2006, American Library Association
2006
Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies
2006
Outstanding Science Trade Book for Children K-12
School
Library Journal Best Children’s Books of 2005
2005
New York Public Library, 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing
2006
Orbis Pictus Recommended Book, NCTE
School
Library Journal, starred review
(December 2005): "...With
incredibly engrossing images and narrative, this is a powerful and
poignant piece of nonfiction."
Children's
Literature: "...A
must for any student researching a report on Pompeii."
The
Center of Children's Literature
(Carthage College):
"...an
exemplary production...
The elegant production job is sure to engage
many curious child readers in a time period and event few will know
until they are lucky enough to discover this book."
Bulletin
of the Center for Children's Books (December, 2005): "...utterly
captivating."
Kirkus
Reviews (October 15, 2005): "Avoiding
the opportunity to sensationalize, Deem's consistently respectful
treatment places the humanity of the victims at the fore...."
- National
Science Teachers Association and the Children's Book Council, Outstanding
Science Trade Book for Students K-12 "...The
book is ideal for the development of interdisciplinary thematic
units, blending science, social studies, and geography in middle
school."
Illinois
Library Association Conference, Center for Children's Books
(61 Books in 60 Minutes): "...an
impressively thorough overview."
On
August 24, the
last Tuesday that they would live in
their town, the
people of ancient Pompeii awoke to a typical hot summer’s morning.
Four days earlier,
a series of small tremors had begun to shake the area, but people were
not very concerned. The region had been subjected to so many
earthquakes over the years that residents had grown accustomed to
them.
What
they didn’t know is that the region’s frequent earthquakes had
been caused by nearby Mount Vesuvius. Roman writers had commented on
the mountain’s strange appearance; one had compared it to Mount
Etna, an active volcano in Sicily. A writer named Strabo even
concluded that Vesuvius had once “held craters of fire.” But
because Mount Vesuvius had been dormant, or sleeping, for over eight
hundred years, no one realized that it was a deadly volcano and that
the earthquakes were signs that it was building up pressure.
That
morning, Vesuvius provided a clearer warning that an eruption was
beginning. Between nine and ten o’clock, the volcano shot a small
explosion of tiny ash particles into the air. The ash streamed up and
fell like fine mist on the eastern slope of Vesuvius. A woman named
Rectina who lived at the foot of the volcano was so alarmed that she
quickly sent a letter with a servant to Elder Pliny, the commander of
Roman naval fleet stationed some 18 miles away, urging him to rescue
her....
Copyright © 2005 by
James M. Deem. This excerpt is taken from Bodies from the Ash
(Houghton Mifflin, 2005).
|
- Order
- Bodies
from the Ash
- from
- Amazon.com
|
|
| |
| Hardcover
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
