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From the early 1920s to his early death (lost at sea) in 1939, Richard Halliburton, who was born in 1900, was a great traveler and adventurer. He would journey to many places around the world and write about them. But he did not just travel – he always had a dramatization to carry out. For example, he rented an elephant because he wanted to re-enact how Hannibal crossed the Alps with his elephants on his way to attack Rome during the Second Punic War between the Roman Republic and the Carthaginian Empire. Another time, he swam the Panama Canal, accompanied by a sharpshooter in a rowboat to keep the crocodiles away from him! He wanted to experience what Odysseus did in his 10-year travel home from the Trojan War, so Halliburton faithfully tried to follow the route as given in Homer’s The Odyssey. All this daring and ingenious travel was recorded in his popular books and lectures.
Richard Halliburton loved to see the world. He wanted to see all the Earth’s wonders in his lifetime. He shares this love of the wonders of the world in his book, Richard Halliburton’s Complete Book of Marvels, which draws from all his other books but is adapted for the middle or high school boy and girl. Illustrated by his own black and white photos, taken by him on-site, his prose is enlivened by his actually being there as he describes what he is seeing, or giving a piece of historical background about the wonder being viewed. I know that today, with the Internet and with so many places so much more accessible than they used to be, a person can probably see images of every place in this book. However, there is something special to actually having been there, seeing things with one’s own eyes, comparing learned material with visual evidence. Nothing can replace this first-hand view. We will probably never get to visit most of these places but the next best thing is to read an account of someone who has been there and who writes in a lively, intelligent fashion. Richard Halliburton’s Complete Book of Marvels is a fascinating, first-person book, and may give the middle to high school reader a personal urge to travel someday and to personally see at least some of these wonders!