Horrible Geography: Odious Oceans by Anita Ganeri - Book Review

Publisher's write-up:

'Geography with the gritty bits left in!

Does geography grind you down? Fed up with miserable maps, rotten rock piles and gruelling graphs? Wave goodbye to boring geography lessons as you dive into the murky waters of Odious Oceans...

• Deft death! by tucking into a poisonous pufferfish.... and surviving.
• Sudder! at ships lost for ever in the baffling Bermuda Triangle.
• Tremble! before perilous modern-day pirates who terrorize today's seas.
• Quiver! as you chew over the stomach contents of a great white shark.

And if that's not odious enough for you ... read our roving reporter's guide to the seabed, uncover the dreadful details of the Titanic's last day and see if you're nautical enough to join the Navy. It's earth-shatteringly exciting!

Geography has never been so horrible!'

I am a great fan of the Horrible Histories and the Dead Famous (now Horribly Famous) series from Scholastic but little did I know the existence of a series named Horrible Geography till I came across the book at a throwaway price in a book fair and I was even more excited by the fact that the book was written by Anita Ganeri for I used to be a geography enthusiast back in school (perhaps still am) and used to visit the school library to read books on geography and hence, this was a familiar name.

This book was similar to the Horrible Histories series, well illustrated and was filled with very interesting facts. Even when I used to read those geography books, reading about oceans barely interested me but then, the author has done an excellent job to bring that interest, writing about several facts / mysteries known to everyone (Bermuda Triangle!) and also on what is under the sea, which contrary to what is visualised, is not a sand bed but has valleys and mountains and active volcanoes. Moreover, I really loved her 'earth shattering facts' and yes, considering that the book is meant for children, she didn't use too many of these technical terms regarding oceans, which is something that made the book enjoyable to someone like myself, for whom it has nearly been seven years since a geography book was touched.

On the flipside, I found this book emphasising a little too much on history, especially, Magellan's journeys, much as it was a great feat, I really feel it had very little to do with oceans as such though you, as a reader may disagree with me on this. Moreover, this is something that the author could hardly be blamed for, there was too much content on seafood and myself, being a vegetarian, could appreciate what she has written, but hardly understand.

Like any other book in the series, I felt this was an excellent light read for a person like me and a very informative read for kids and yes, certainly more interesting than their geography text books from school.

Rating - 7/10

Have a nice day,

Andy