Awards

• Children's Book Committee at Bank Street College Best Children's Book of the Year
• Florida Book Awards Silver Medalist
• Junior Library Guild Selection

Overview

Join a real-life adventure—a scientific expedition to a remote area of the Honduran rainforest, suspected to be the ruins of the Lost City of the Monkey God. In the dense rain forest of Honduras, a legend lay hidden. For centuries, explorers had searched fruitlessly for a rumored lost city. With the help of a new technology called lidar, which uses a low-flying plane and laser technology, filmmaker Steve Elkins and his team found promising evidence of where the city might be. But to know if they had really found an ancient archaeological site, a team of explorers and scientists still had to go into the rain forest to look for it. The team only had ten days to hike into the dense jungle, likely unvisited by humans in the past 500 years, and locate the archaeological site. And what they found was not what they had expected. In fact, the discoveries were so astounding that more expeditions followed the first. From close-up encounters with fearsome predators to swarming insects to dangerous flash floods, the explorers faced numerous challenges as they worked to find artifacts and document the diversity of life in this remote area. Award-winning science author Sandra Markle takes readers along on this series of scientific expeditions to discover what secrets this lost city holds.

Full Product Details

9781728436593

Table of Contents

Reviews

""An adventurous biology and archaeology book filled with beautiful images and impeccable design.""—School Library Journal ""In this well-written text, readers will step into an exciting field of discovery, following in the footsteps of pioneering scientists and archeologists who brought an ancient city to life in the twenty-first century.""—Children's Literature ""Markle provides clear explanations of the lidar mapping process, the camera traps, and the systematic exploration of the conservation team as well as a smoothly flowing story that carries readers along on these adventures. . . . An inviting introduction to an amazing place.""—Kirkus Reviews

Scientific treasure hunts in an inaccessible Central American rainforest yield surprises. Veteran science writer Markle describes the efforts of two types of expeditions to reveal secrets of La Mosquitia rainforest in Honduras. First, in 2015, documentary filmmaker Steve Elkins led a team deep into this wild, uninhabited world, prompted by persistent legends of a lost city and images on maps he'd commissioned using a technology known as lidar (light detection and ranging). They found boulders that might have been the foundations for buildings as well as statues and stone stools; there was no treasure but also no plastic trash. A year later, a second expedition, led by archaeologist Chris Fisher, one of the team members, found more artifacts; team members' ensuing health problems ended further efforts. In 2017, a group of 12 scientists from the U.S. nonprofit organization Conservation International, aided by Honduran soldiers, also explored the forest, investigating its ecology and later retrieving camera traps left behind. Throughout this engaging account, photos, mostly from these expeditions and the camera traps, reveal the remarkable finds of these teams, among them a giant carved boulder, a stool with 'the carved head of a supernatural-looking jaguar, ' and a sculpted vulture. Photographs also document a variety of living plants and animals, including a live jaguar, and emphasize the inaccessibility and density of this 'pristine' wilderness. Markle provides clear explanations of the lidar mapping process, the camera traps, and the systematic exploration of the conservation team as well as a smoothly flowing story that carries readers along on these adventures. Team members present as White and Latine. An inviting introduction to an amazing place.--Kirkus Reviews -- Journal (8/1/2022 12:00:00 AM)

Author Information

Sandra Markle is the author of numerous award-winning books for children. A former elementary science teacher, she is a nationally-known science education consultant. Markle has received many honors for her series Animal Predators, Animal Scavengers, and Animal Prey. Several titles have been named as National Science Teachers Association (NSTA)/Children’s Book Council (CBC) Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12, and Animal Predators was honored as a Top 10 Youth Nonfiction Series by Booklist. Over 500 schools participate in Markle's Book Explorers program which provides free resource-packed emails and classroom activities. Markle lives in Lakewood Ranch, Florida with her husband, photographer Skip Jeffery.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available