two more kids books, and the end of Chisholm

I finished Chisholm's To the Summit. This book was just a summit for me. I think a lot of people who are really in to themselves and need lots of reassurance might enjoy seeing one of their own climb on Everest and elsewhere, but she really weirds me out, and I enjoyed much more reading about that other expedition that just wasn't fur her (where everyone was just too focused on the mountain) in Kamler's Doctor on Everest. Chisholm attempts Everest in 1992 and 1993 via the South Col and returns for a trip to Base Camp in 1995. Her first trip is under Todd Burleson, and her second with Hall and Ball. She makes it to Camp II the first time and halfway to Camp III the second. I'm continually amazed at people who can finance not only trips to Everest but trips around the world to climb on all seven continents. She completes five of her seven summits is just over a year, having climbed Kilimanjaro on her first mountain climbing trip a few years earlier. She leaves her mountaineering quest unfinished, but is happy with her accomplishments.

Mary Ann Fraser writes and illustrates Hillary and Tenzings final approach to the top of Everest in her On Top of the World. The information presented is pretty accurate and is well-written. The illustrations are mostly accurate, excepting the picture with Hillary and Tenzing posing for the famous summit photo together, with Tenzing holding his ice ax in the air and Hillary wrapping his arm around Tenzing's shoulders.

Richard Platt's Everest: Reaching the World's Highest Peak reads a bit like a magazine, with lots of side notes and illustrations, and each page spread containing a different subject about Everest or mountaineering in general. The information is general, but accurate and the illustrations have similar qualities. It gives information on the early mountaineering history, pioneering expeditions, has several pages on the first successful expedition, notes on several subsequent expeditions, (including the American expedition of 1963, the British Southwest Face expedition), and a lot of information related to the area as well, such as how the Himalayas formed, and how electricity is generated in the area.