"We dressed in our safari clothes and pith helmets... We could not wait to sally forth to the pyramids tomorrow."
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The Perilous African Adventures
of Sir Gilbert and Sir Bert by Bert H. Carlson Trafford Publishing
book review by Cynthia Collins
Agent XX (Sir Bert) is off exploring the forests, rivers, and jungles throughout Africa, and the pyramids of Egypt, with Sir Gilbert. He is keeping notes of his travels and writes letters to 8-year-old Lucy and 10-year-old Louie (also known as Agent Lucy and Agent Louie). He goes into great detail about such things as the birds they see, keeping their eye on the North Star, Sir Gilbert's case of gout, and riding camels. While riding camels, he and Sir Gilbert get caught in a sandstorm only to find out that they have come across a movie set and the director isn't too happy about being interrupted. Some of the letters are presented as facts, others invite the recipients to look things up because some of his statements are true, some are not.
These letters were written for intellectual middle school children in a style resembling Stanley and Livingstone or Sherlock Holmes and Watson. Each letter is written with a sense of humor and includes several scientific or geographical facts to encourage students to learn more. The overall idea is creative. However, the book by itself has so much text with very few pictures to help break it up. The author states that he wrote some of these letters while he was teaching and the rest after he retired. If teachers were to use this book with additional audio-visual teaching aids, such as a slide show of the jungle or the pyramids, it would be an excellent learning experience for all students.