You might be thinking this right now: "Has Daryl gone nuts?!"
Yeah, I've got some real gall submitting a review of a children’s
book to a naval simulation website - and to think they actually
accepted it! But bear with me a minute folks. I’m sure many of the
older Subsim members have children of their own, and when they start
developing their own interest in naval history...well, you’re not
going to fork over $50 for the newest Naval Institute title for your
third grader, are you?
Kid’s books on naval subjects have always been few and far between,
probably because most young boys get a bigger kick out of tanks and
fighter planes, and consider ships and submarines "boring" and
"geeky." Whatever everyone else my age may have thought, when I begged
my Mom to buy me a copy of Stephen Biesty’s Incredible Cross
Sections when I was eight, I was hooked on ships and submarines
forever. That book beautifully detailed cut-away drawings of 18
vehicles and structures, including a Spanish Galleon, a Type VII
U-boat, a modern fishing trawler, and the Queen Mary. For once,
ships weren’t just mysterious machines that floating magically on the
water, they were real life mechanical constructs, assembled much like
buildings and populated by living, breathing people.
Incredible Cross-Sections: Man-Of-War was Biesty’s second book
created in cooperation with writer Richard Platt, and my favorite of
his by far. Then again, my own personal bias probably plays a part in
that! The subject of this book is a British 100-gun first-rate
ship-of-the-line of the late 18th Century, a virtual replica in all
but name of Horatio Nelson’s famous HMS Victory. He slices the
ship into 10 vertical sections from fore to aft, each slice depicting
a different aspect of life onboard, including health and medicine,
sleeping, resupplying in port, battle, and working at sea. Each spread
includes a large transverse section through the ship with important
features labeled and described, and a number of informational capsule
summaries covering subjects ranging from how cannons were fired, the
tools used by the surgeon, and what the crew ate.
Stephen Biesty’s art style is worth describing in some detail. A
graduate of both Brighton and Birmingham Polytechnic, Biesty has
always been an illustrator firmly rooted in the old school. Even today
he refuses to use a computer when creating his artwork, or even a
ruler for that matter! He uses nothing but pen, ink, and water
color paints, and his style is unlike anyone else out there. Except
for the bright red uniforms worn by the ship's marines, Man-Of-War
employs a fairly subdued color palette, but the sheer amount of
detail is often mind boggling. In the spread on working at sea,
you’ll find sailors chasing rats in the hold, marines hanging their
backpacks from the lower deck beams, sail makers mending the sails, a
one-legged sailor playing a fiddle atop the capstan, men scurrying up
rigging, and a dead sailor being consigned to the sea, just to name a
few things. His attention to historical accuracy is commendable as
well. The arrangement of the ship, the way the frames and beams are
laid out, the uniforms worn by the crew, and the overall depiction of
how the officers and crew lived and worked are all pretty much dead
on.
Since Biesty’s depictions are so accurate,
Man-Of-War is also probably
one of the nastiest children’s books ever written. Jump to page
18-19, and you’ll see a gun crew being wiped out by flying splinters,
men with arms and legs missing, wounded sailors crying out in pain,
and dismembered heads and legs floating in the water. Elsewhere in the
book, you’ll find illustrations of the surgeon performing an
amputation, plenty of vomit and drunkenness, biscuits riddled with
weevils, lashings, and with all of Biesty’s books, people going to the
bathroom. While Man-Of-War was written for the 9-12 age group,
parents might want to give it a once-over before buying it.
Nit-picking a children’s book might be silly, but I would have liked
to have seen a bit more information on the working of sails and
rigging. Of course, that element of the Age of Sail has always been
the most frustratingly beguiling to aficionados of the Age of Fighting
Steel, and including too much information on it probably would have
just confused the book’s target age range. On the up side, a decent
overall view of the ship is included, along with a glossary that
explains most of the terms used in the book. Except for a few nagging
issues that I take exception to as an "adult," Man-Of-War is
definitely a "cool" book that will appeal to naval enthusiasts of all
ages. It’s vivid, detailed, gritty, honest, and peppered with black
humor, and certain to become a favorite amongst fans of C. S. Forester
and Patrick O'Brian.
Incredible
Cross Sections:
Man-Of-War
