transportation

Robert Ballard is one of the few genuine adventurer - hero models available to young people of the 21st Century. He is is incapable of being boring. He's somehow interesting even when he's talking about a can of paint. He has manifold unquestioned achievements, both scientific and spectacular in the public eye. His flair for photography and for commissioning or selecting exciting paintings of underwater scenes is unparalleled. His feeling for developing memorable themes, in this case lost ships, is gripping for both adults who allow their imaginations to seized by large events effectively told, as well as children.

At times one hears unjustified carping from scientists at Ballard's role as a popularizer. At others, not unreasonable arguments are raised that some of his books don't offer enough credit to others. I have known Ballard from the time of his PhD dissertation at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and onwards. I prefer to interpret Ballard's telling of major stories with simplifications as part of his ability to reach and affect large audiences, including young people who have become one of his major targets and goals in later life. Kids simply don't have the life experience and maturity to weigh all nuances of complex phenomena like scientific and exploration discovery.

Ballard has made extraordinary efforts with his Jason outreach programs to enliven science education for school children, facilitating realtime "exploration" opportunities to hundreds of thousands of young people. Ballard has a sense of personal ethics (refreshing in a "me" generation), being reluctant, for example, to allow souvenirs to be retrieved from the Titanic and other wrecks. Even though one can argue scientific and other value for such retrieval, I attribute to him sense of purpose and principle along with other unusual qualities as a person and author.

I accidentally ordered this children's book from my son's school book fair, but I really love it. I wanted the book Lost Liners also by Bob Ballard. The paintings in Ghost Liners are wonderful and the narrative is interesting and also sad at times. I didn't even know about many of the other sea disasters. My son did read the book, but I'm the one who enjoyed it the most. The haunting illustrations are, themselves, worth the price of the book.

This was a pretty good little book for the money. However, it was largely a slimmed-down version of Lost Liners, which I highly recommend. Some new pictures were featured, but much of it was rehash.