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Microlife

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BfK No. 110 - May 1998

Cover Story
This issue's cover is from Emma Chichester Clark's picture book, More! Emma Chichester Clark is interviewed by Quentin Blake. Thanks to Andersen Children's Books for their help in producing this cover.

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Microlife

David Burnie
(Dorling Kindersley Publishers Ltd)
48pp, NON FICTION, 978-0751355956, Hardcover
10-14 Middle/Secondary
Inside Guides
Buy "Microlife - Oceans (Inside Guides)" on Amazon

Dorling Kindersley's 'Inside Guides' series is based on photographs of high-quality specially made models. The idea is to show things that cannot be normally photographed, with the same photographic clarity that their 'Eyewitness' series has. Microlife focuses on microscopic life --- everything from bacteria to bedbugs. The models are often brilliantly made --- and simply seeing such things as a stunning model of a microscopic dust mite eating a flake of dead skin blown up 10cm across is quite startling. Looking at a 3D model of an itch mite burrowing its way through skin is enough to make you shudder. The book is attractively and stylishly presented, and Burnie's text is clear and informative. Yet there is something faintly incongruous about the presentation of all these minute dwellers in life's dirt almost as pristine objets d'arts. Divorced from their environment, these creatures lose at least some of their intrinsic fascination. The presentation of almost all text as brief annotations means the information is rather bitty and lacking in context. There is presumably some logic to the choice of microbes, but a spread at the beginning reusing the same models does not really draw them together or show how each fits into the real world. This is a beautiful book to look at, and the subject is fascinating, but the design concept is a little too overpowering.

Reviewer: 
John Farndon
3
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