Earth-Friendly Buildings, Bridges, and More

by Etta Kaner

Introducing Corry Lapont: 12-year-old and aspiring "green" engineer. This dynamic title takes the form of Corry's scrapbook. It's a dazzling collection of postcards, brochures and other memorabilia documenting Corry's research into green design. Kid-friendly language explains the engineering behind some of the planet's most cutting edge towers, bridges, tunnels, domes, dams, dikes, locks and levees. These structures include the Vizcaya Bridge in Spain, where gondolas transport cars over the Nervion River, and the Channel tunnel, where trains speed between England and France in just 35 minutes. Readers will explore the environmental impact of structures, such as the pros and cons of dam construction and how rainwater can be used to cool buildings. Complex concepts are clarified with simple activities, as well as colorful drawings, fun facts and the occasional wisecrack from Corry's kid brother, Riley.

Genres: Science, Canada, Nonfiction

64 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Clivemichael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clear descriptions well presented. Excellent

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Twelve-year-old Corry Lapont, an aspiring engineer who plans to design buildings that are environmentally friendly, keeps a scrapbook of postcards and photos of structures that are well built but also take a green perspective on their designs. Readers will enjoy following Corry all around the world, from the Hearst Tower in New York City to Tapei 101 in Tapei, Taiwan as she takes a look at skyscrapers. Later, in the book, Cory describes different types of bridges, tunnels, domes, dams, dikes, locks, and levees. Not only are the cartoon-like illustrations colorful and appealing, but the fact that the book also contains activities that enable readers to understand concepts such as croos-bracing or why suspension bridges need anchorages. What an enjoyable treat this book is, filled with up-to-date information about dome houses and the levees in New Orleans.

[Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is from the piont of view of a girl named Corry Lapont who goes arond the world with her family and makes this scrapbook.In it she puts all of the buildings shes seen and explanes why they are ecofriendly.From this book i learned that there is a type of bridge called cantilever its hard to explane what it looks like but its on page 18.I also learned that there are differant truss designs plus this book has progects you can do to see if what she is talking about is true.

[Jessicadebiasio · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned a lot about how difficult it is to build Eco friendly buildings for this world. I learned different ways of preserving energy and creating energy. I think that if enough people read this book that buildings in the world will change the way we build and make/use our energy. I never really thought a lot about making materials in our life Eco friendly and now that I have read this it gives me and hopefully others ideas for the future.

[William · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't really like this book mainly because i'm not really interested in buildings and that's pretty much the main topic of the book. Another thing that I didn't like was that it could talk about the same topic for pages and pages such as support beams. But I did like that the book was pretty short and the pictures took up space.

[Dario 76 · Rating 3 out of 5]

i think this book was pretty good. My favourite structure was the daniel johnson dam. This book tells alot like how to make a structure earth frendily. Another building i liked was the one on the front cover i forget what it is called but it is cool. I thought this book was pretty good and thats why.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was good. I really liked that it was from a girls point of view and it was in the form of her scrapbook. I thought it made learning about these buildings more fun. I enjoyed learning about all the differnt ecofriendly buildings in the world. There are so many! I really liked learning about the domes and how they are made of triangles because they are sturdy.

[Danielleacorn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I personaly did not like the book that much because its in a girl piont of veiw and in one part shes talking about her school trip to Ottowa, then it talks about her school progect then it talks about how she is mad at her teacher. It jumps around from topic to topic to much.

[Logan D · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked the book. It was very interesting finding out sbout so msny green structures there are.It was very interesting reading about all of the green t\structeres built like skyscrapers,bridges,dams,ice hotel, and a ton of other stuff. it was just an overall great book in my opinion

[Gail Gauthier · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...this is quite a marvelous book about the work that goes into building a variety of structures and how many of them are being built greener."

Excerpt from Original Content.

[Sydneyreader · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought it was an alright book but was also boring. I still have a favourite part though because I loved the picture of the art in the fourteenth street subway in New York.

[Navdeep Mann · Rating 4 out of 5]

well actully i did not read this book and the thing is i want to read it and
this book looks a bit short to me so it will take about 2-3 days only