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The Quest for Z: The True Story of Explorer Percy Fawcett and a Lost City in the Amazon

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The Quest for Z: The True Story of Explorer Percy Fawcett and a Lost City in the Amazon

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Overview

From an award-winning author comes a picture book biography that feels like Indiana Jones for kids!

British explorer Percy Fawcett believed that hidden deep within the Amazon rainforest was an ancient city, lost for the ages. Most people didn’t even believe this city existed. But if Fawcett could find it, he would be rich and famous forever. This is the true story of one man’s thrilling, dangerous journey into the jungle, and what he found on his quest for the lost city of Z.

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About the Author

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780670016532
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	06/13/2017
Pages:	48
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 9.60(h) x 0.40(d)
Lexile:	NC1190L (what's this?)
Age Range:	7 - 10 Years

About the Author

Greg Pizzoli is an author, illustrator and screen printer from Philadelphia. His first picture book, The Watermelon Seed, was published by Disney*Hyperion Books and was the 2014 recipient of the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award. Greg's work has been featured in The New York Times, Communication Arts, 3x3 Magazine and he's won two Portfolio Honor Awards from the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. After college, Greg spent two years as a full-time volunteer in AmeriCORPS from 2005-2006. In 2009, he received his MFA from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where he now teaches. Greg lives in Philadelphia with his wife and two unruly cats.

From the B&N Reads Blog

Page 1 of

Crystallized Skeletons and “Fawcett Freaks”: An Interview with The Quest for Z Author Greg Pizzoli

The Quest for Z is an exciting new non-fiction picture book created by author and illustrator Greg Pizzoli. Even if your young reader has never heard of Percy Fawcett, they are sure to be swept away in this epic adventure story which travels the globe from London to the Amazon Rain Forest. It’s hard to […]

04/24/2017
Pizzoli takes readers to the pre-GPS era, when “maps of the world still included large ‘blank spots’,” and introduces cartographer/explorer Percy Fawcett, who disappeared in 1925 while looking for the remnants of an ancient city deep in the Amazon rainforest. Fawcett dubbed this once-mighty metropolis “Z”—maybe, Pizzoli speculates, “because the lost city seemed to be the most remote place in the world, the final stop, like the last letter of the alphabet.” As he did in Tricky Vic, Pizzoli combines flat illustrations and elements (like speech balloons) with archival materials, giving the pages the feel of an animated educational film. The narrative can be a little hard to track as Pizzoli recounts the several expeditions Fawcett led for the Royal Geographic Society prior to his private, doomed search for Z. But hardly a page goes by without an enthralling or gory detail, such as the discovery of an expedition scout found “dead, with forty-two arrows in his body,” an incident Pizzoli depicts with an image reminiscent of the classic Saul Bass poster for Anatomy of a Murder. Ages 7–10. Agent: Steven Malk, Writers House. (June)

Publishers Weekly

* "Fascinating. . . . A superb snapshot of an adventurer."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"A swashbuckling adventure."—School Library Journal

"Enthralling."—Publishers Weekly

* "A compelling narrative with important facts."—School Library Connection, starred review

"With a focus on mystery, peril, and adventure, this inviting biography should easily pique the curiosity of the elementary-school set."—Booklist

An Amazon Best Book of the Year

Praise for Greg Pizzoli's Tricky Vic:

Selected for The New York Times ten Best Illustrated Children's Books of 2015

Selected for Amazon's Best Books of the Year list

Selected for the American Library Association's Notable Children's Books List

"Splendid. . . . Loaded with facts but with good storytelling and high-level illustration. . . . I’m thrilled that Pizzoli has chosen to present [Tricky Vic's] story so compellingly to our nation’s children."—The New York Times

"Intriguing."—The Wall Street Journal

"What a con job! I mean that in the best possible way. Vic was tricky but so is Greg Pizzoli. His storytelling and mixed-media artwork is rendered with expert sleight of hand."—Lane Smith, author/illustrator of It's a Book and the Caldecott Honor book Grandpa Green

"It's hard enough to make a well-told story out of real-life things—it’s almost unfair that he could also make it this pretty."—Jon Klassen, author and illustrator of the Caldecott Medal winner This Is Not My Hat

* "An appealingly colorful, deadpan account of a remarkably audacious and creative criminal."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

* "What a fabulous story."—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, starred review

From the Publisher

04/01/2017
Gr 2–5—Percy Fawcett dreamed of being an explorer from the time he was a young child in the 1860s; the accounts of his explorer father and brother fueled his enthusiasm. Even his stint in the British Army in Sri Lanka afforded him the opportunity to investigate local jungles. On Fawcett's return home, he began training through the Royal Geographical Society, learning, for instance, which plants were poisonous and which were not. The Society hired him to map areas of Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru, including some of the most dangerous regions of the Amazon rain forest. Fawcett kept coming home safe and finding a new trip to lead. Throughout, he heard rumors of a fantastic ancient city reportedly deep in the Amazon area, a ruin he wanted to locate. So off he went in April 1925, with his 21-year-old son and another young man. Fawcett sold his story to a newspaper and promised regular reports so the papers could bring "live" news to their readers. This offering is for daring readers who prefer nonfiction: there's an unknown explorer to pique their interest, great back matter to demonstrate how to deepen their research, and Pizzoli's clever, humorous illustrations. However, this is very much a tale of British colonialism and will likely need to be supplemented with further discussions. VERDICT A swashbuckling adventure for large elementary school and nonfiction collections.—Dorcas Hand, formerly at Annunciation Orthodox School, Houston

School Library Journal

★ 2017-03-29
Pizzoli resurrects an early-20th-century mystery in this riveting portrait of Percy Fawcett, a renowned British explorer who vanished during an ill-fated hunt for a "lost" city.Shortly following an early life of military service to the British Empire, Fawcett dived deep into a career of adventuring. He trained for a year with the Royal Geographical Society, a prominent research center based in London, before the organization began to send him out on expeditions into South America between the years of 1906 and 1924. Pizzoli devotes the first half of Fawcett's tale to building the latter's legend, expertly drawing from Fawcett's thrilling brushes with wildlife and local populations to bring to life the formidable explorer. (An encounter involving a giant anaconda is presented via minimalist illustrations both terrifying and brilliant in scope.) Throughout his various research excursions, Fawcett heard tales of a mythical city deep in the Amazon rain forest. Naming the city "Z," Fawcett soon embarked on what turned out to be his final known expedition, and his subsequent disappearance went on to capture the public's imagination. As in the author's previous gem (Tricky Vic, 2015), the strikingly matte, mixed-media pictures ooze personality and perfectly complement the succinct text and informational sidebars. Predictably, Fawcett's story features a cast of light-skinned characters, with a few brown-skinned individuals included to represent the invisible local populations; his failure to "conquer" in the end represents a fascinating twist on the usual narrative of imperialism. A superb snapshot of an adventurer. (author's note, appendix, glossary, selected sources) (Picture book/biography. 7-12)

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