Antarctic Close-Up, by Hazel Edwards

Dad warned me, but … I just wanted to look inside the telescope. An idea came to me: the telescope and the webcam both let you see things better. What if I put the old technology and the new technology together?

John likes to fiddle with things, which sometimes lands him in trouble. But when he connects a broken webcam to a telescope which was once used in the Antarctic, he gets a surprise. Through the webcam, history comes alive on his dad’s laptop. Now John and his friend Peter are witnessing the events of an expedition that took place nearly a hundred years ago.

Antarctic Close-Up is part historical novel, part fantasy adventure, with most of the action taking place in the present, where John and Peter have access to the telescope at his father’s auction business. Young readers will enjoy this novel approach to examining history, with John and Peter witnessing the expedition through the webcam and the screen of the laptop.

Part of the Making Tracks series, Antarctic Close-Up offers a unique perspective on Antarctic history to young readers.

Antarctic Close-Up, by Hazel Edwards
National Museum of Australia Press, 2007