The Indestructible Tom Crean: Heroic Explorer of the Antarctic

by Jennifer Thermes, Jennifer Thermes (Illustrator)

Overview

Heroic Explorer of the Antarctic.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Antarctica is the last unexplored continent. The ice is unforgiving. It can break the human spirit. It takes many men willing to face hardship, danger, and years away from home to journey to this uncharted end of the earth. This is the story of one. His name is Tom Crean.

The Indestructible Tom Crean reveals the incredible true stories of Crean's adventures on the Discovery, Terra Nova, and Endurance expeditions. He hauls eight-hundred-pound sleds full of supplies, escapes from drifting ice floes, and trudges miles alone across a treachero's ice shelf. When the Endurance becomes trapped in the frozen sea and sinks, it is up to Crean and several others to go for help. They sail a tiny lifeboat through the most violent seas in the world and cross a daunting glacial mountain range by foot in order to save their fellow explorers. Tom Crean's heroic acts of courage, perseverance, and teamwork inspire the men to keep going.

Through dazzling mapwork and vivid illustrations, Jennifer Thermes brings a formidable landscape and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration to life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593117729
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	01/24/2023
Pages:	56
Sales rank:	220,672
Product dimensions:	11.31(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.44(d)
Lexile:	AD760L (what's this?)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Jennifer Thermes is a map illustrator and the author-illustrator of many books for children, including Manhattan: Mapping the Story of an Island, which was an Orbis Pictus Honor Book and a Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book of the Year. She lives in Connecticut. Please visit jenniferthermes.com.

Editorial Reviews

10/24/2022

Antarctic explorer and seaman Tom Crean (1877–1938) overcomes icy challenges in this adventuresome picture book profile. Briefly referencing Crean’s upbringing in Ireland, Thermes features three polar expeditions with chapter-like introductions that include voyage years, Crean’s role, the journey goal, and a capsule map. Text jumps right into the frigid action with the subject’s decision to join the Antarctica-bound ship Discovery, which becomes trapped in ice for two years. Fast-forward six years to the Terra Nova (“Goal: to be the first to reach the South Pole”), for which Crean’s bravery in service of others wins him a medal. The drama continues at sea and on land during a final outing with Ernest Shackleton aboard the Endurance. Thermes provides a detailed narrative picture of the treks’ hardships, including the death of ship animals (“Frozen hands and frostbit feet. Salt water, sloshing. Rotting reindeer-skin sleeping bags”), through watercolor, colored pencil, and salt illustrations that gentle with their pale delicacy. Back matter includes an afterword, timeline, sources, and more. Ages 4–8. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

★ "A story of bitter cold infused with warmth and with the fighting spirit of its courageous subject."  –Kirkus Reviews, starred review

★ "Thermes' past work as a map illustrator is employed to great effect here . . . Created with watercolor, colored pencil, and salt, the artwork features a soft, sunny palette that keeps the story upbeat, even during blizzards and perilous times. With varied compositions, this is a detail-rich presentation not to be missed." –Booklist, starred review

★ "[E]nthralling . . . Thermes’s honed text, in a grabbingly immediate present tense, uses short, high-impact sentences that make the most of the inherent drama. Her illustrations (in watercolor, colored pencil, and salt) are full of detail, action, and atmosphere.” –The Horn Book, starred review

“Poetic writing blends with watercolor illustrations that embody the limited palette of the Antarctic landscape to provide readers with a unique presentation of Crean’s adventures.” –School Library Journal

From the Publisher

02/01/2023

Gr 2–4—The Antarctic continent calls to many with the siren song of its dangerous beauty. Tom Crean is a little-known Antarctic explorer who, in his three trips to the region, battled countless challenges as he attempted to better understand this frigid place. Born in County Kerry, Ireland, to a large farming family, Crean took to the sea to build a more prosperous future. And as the years passed, he found himself in Antarctica time and time again under different leadership, including Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton, and each excursion tested his mettle even more significantly than the one before. This fascinating biography of an explorer in the early 1900s gives young readers a glimpse at one of the brave individuals who risked their life in the study of the Antarctic. Because Crean wrote and spoke markedly little about his experiences, this book unites the words of other explorers into a cohesive narrative focusing primarily on Crean. This long and complex story is approachable due to the brief and succinct text. Poetic writing blends with watercolor illustrations that embody the limited palette of the Antarctic landscape to provide readers with a unique presentation of Crean's adventures. The images vary in design and presentation to add dynamism to the narrative, while various supplemental materials are included to aid in readers' comprehension of the magnitude of Antarctic exploration. VERDICT This detailed story will support an elementary school curriculum pertaining to global exploration. It's also something of a thriller.—Mary R. Lanni

School Library Journal

★ 2022-10-26
The tale of an indomitable sailor who survived challenge after challenge—including the wreck of Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance.

Irish-born sailor Tom Crean’s (1877-1938) life changed forever when he agreed to join a voyage destined for Antarctica. Signing on to the Discovery, Crean was involved in early exploration of the continent and ultimately made three treks to the Antarctic—the last of which extended more than two years and involved a death-defying journey back to civilization after the loss of the famous Endurance. Each journey was fraught with dangers, from starvation and malnutrition to frostbite and hypothermia. But still, Crean returned. Though the story does not shy away from the tragedies and horrors of exploration, noting the loss of both human and animal companions on each journey, Thermes’ narration is age-appropriate. Readers fascinated by the sea or by our least-populated continent will find this biography gripping, and educators and caregivers will appreciate the robust backmatter, which includes an afterword, a timeline, and a list of select sources that encourage further study. Relying on panels, as in a graphic novel, the illustrations, rendered in colored pencil and watercolor, capture the warmth of the ships and the cold expanses of the glaciers and ice. Thermes makes excellent use of the pages’ white spaces to capture the beauty and the loneliness of Antarctica, further pulling readers into Crean’s journey. Crean and his crewmates present White. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A story of bitter cold infused with warmth and with the fighting spirit of its courageous subject. (facts about Antarctica) (Biography. 8-10)

Kirkus Reviews