Nine-year-old Sophie is very excited. She is travelling to Mawson Station in Antarctica to deliver supplies with her father, captain of the icebreaker ship, ‘Aurora Australis’. The trip will take a month including not quite two weeks to get there, a week at Mawson base and then the return trip. Sophie will see icebergs, penguins, seals, and whales and maybe even be in a blizzard. She has packed a diary to record all the amazing things she will see and learn on the trip.
We experience the trip through Sophie’s eyes via her diary entries, her illustrations and photographs. There is a detailed description and illustration of the ‘Aurora Australis’ and what life on board is like especially in the rough weather they experience where the wind is so strong and cold ‘I could hardly breathe’. Sophie’s time at Mawson base is filled with new adventures including being stuck inside the base during a blizzard and white-out.
The book is packed full of information about how the scientists survive working in the extreme Antarctic conditions, how to dress for the outside, what supplies are brought in and how they travel either by vehicle or even walk in blizzard conditions. You cannot help but share Sophie’s excitement at her first sight of an iceberg or of penguins and seals. With so much to see and learn it is both an informative and emotive journey and this is reflected in the layout which is positively bursting with information and artwork. The design is in keeping with Sophie’s heightened curiosity and excitement and reminiscent of a child’s diary.
The illustrations are a combination of original artwork by Alison Lester and photographs taken by the author during her 2005 trip aboard the Aurora Australis to Antarctic, a trip that was the inspiration for the book. During that trip Lester emailed her adventures to schools and families worldwide and in response children sent her illustrations based on her stories. A number of these illustrations are included in the book. The book’s endpapers are detailed maps of Antarctica and there is a glossary of the terms included in the book and information about previous Antarctic explorers.
‘Sophie Scott goes South’ is a fascinating introduction to Antarctica and a springboard to numerous other topics such as penguins, icebergs, the early explorers, and the importance of scientific research undertaken there.
Picture Books for Older Readers
