It took me a little while to organize my thoughts about Bison, a book I picked from Edelweiss. I was expecting photography with some info, and I got the reverse, a ton of info with some pictures.
Chase and Audrey said, surprise! 😀
Let’s analyze it together.
Cover: as always, the cover is an eyecatcher. It’s simple and elegant, it showcases a bison in its natural element. Lovely choice.
Yay!
- The care Chase put in writing Bison needs to be commended. As I said, I was expecting a visual book and I got the full experience. There are personal anecdotes, historical touches, cultural and artistic perspectives – they all come together and paint a 360° picture of the bison.
- As a direct consequence, I learned a lot about bison, from down and dirty details–herds decimation makes me so sad–to their importance in Native American cultures. They’re featured in artistic compositions, they’re the protagonists of various legends, and if they’re left in peace, just bison being bison, they also help balance the ecosystem.
- Thumbs up for structure and rhythm. Non-fiction books need variety to keep things interesting, but not too much or they become chaotic. Bison does an excellent job in balancing it all.
- Some pictures are very nice!
Special mention:
- Bison Bar sign. Full-on Americana, that one.
- A snow-covered bison, adorable.
- Calves! They’re so tiny when compared to adult animals, all cute and fluffy.
- A tone-on-tone picture, with a small hill as backdrop and two bison in the forefront. Spectacular coloring.
- A herd munching away, sky for miles. All that open space captured with a camera makes me breathe easier (no, I don’t know either. I can’t write it better than I ever felt it – semicit.)
Nay!
- The file has formatting issues: there are paragraphs starting on page A, stopping halfway in, and picking up again in the middle of page B – or not picking up at all. I double checked the file itself and my Kindle, no dice. Unfortunately, I’m unable to compare the e-book with the printed version to see if this issue affects that, too.
- Some pictures don’t do too much justice to bison. They’re too small and again, formatted in a weird way. A string of two or three pictures, with no borders or space left between them? It waters down the visual impact and undermines half the book.
TL;DR
3 stars on GR, and I really wish they implemented a 0.5 star system too.
Bookshelves & Teacups 