Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
Earth-Friendly Buildings, Bridges and More: The Eco-Journal of Corry Lapont
Illustrator: Stephen MacEachern
Nonfiction
For ages 9 to 12
Kids Can Press, 2012 ISBN: 978-1554535705
For many years now, people have been incorporating green environmental practices into their lives. They make a point of reducing, reusing, and recycling. They ride bikes, walk, carpool, or use public transportation to get to work or school. More recently, people have started to think about their carbon footprint, finding ways to reduce how much carbon they consume. They are finding ways to make their homes greener, and some people are even designing new homes that are better for the environment on several fronts.
Then there are people who make a living designing buildings that are earth-friendly. Corry Lapont’s mother is a structural engineer, and her father is an environmental engineer. Together, they work on building projects around the world where environmental concerns are taken into consideration. They care about how the building or structure is designed, and what materials are used in its construction. Corry and her brother have traveled all over the world with their parents, and Corry has created this eco-journal so that you can see for yourself how engineers, architects, and urban planners work together to build bridges, tunnels, skycrapers, domes, and dams that are environmentally friendly.
Corry begins her narrative by telling us a bit about skyscrapers. We find out that many different kinds of professional people have to work together to design and then build a skyscraper. They have to make sure that the building has a solid foundation, that it has a “strong core,” and that it can withstand high winds, earthquakes and other natural phenomena. We find out about some extraordinary skyscrapers that combine unique design features and building materials to create buildings that are green.
Corry then goes on to write chapters in her journal about bridges, tunnels, domes, and water retaining structures like dikes, dams, and levees. In each chapter, she tells us a little about how these structures are built and about new environmental innovations that are being developed. She also shows us pictures of some of these structures. Corry even includes projects for readers to try that demonstrate a number of building principals.
More and more people are getting interesting in building green buildings and structures, and this book will help young readers to better understand how these structures are created and how they take environmentalism to a new level.
