The Heart of the World

The Heart of the World — Antarctica
By Coral Tulloch
Published by ABC Books
ISBN 0 7333 0912 7

This is supposed to be a book for children, and Coral Tulloch is well-known as an author and illustrator of children’s books. However, in this book — written after a round-trip voyage on the Aurora Australis and published by ABC Books as part of their admirable library of books for younger readers — she fulfills a role that means the reader’s number of years is immaterial.

For here is a wonderful introduction to Antarctica — a compendium of Antarctic exeriences that Coral, and others she quotes in its pages, helps bring the ice-bound continent to life — and age has nothing to do with it. Should you be so lucky as to be going into the deepest south on a tourist ship or maybe a tourist flight, or if you just want to know more about the world’s largest continent, then this is a book for you.

It is indeed a compendium. Read it before tackling more serious stuff about such milestones such as Scott’s voyages, or Amundsen’s, or any of the legendary explorers of this rare, beautiful, snow-padded, silent and often lethal world. It provides a background for other stories.

Although written with schoolchildren in mind, Coral never talks down to her audience, and her illustrations are ageless. Another bonus for adult readers is that all the funny, quirky, weirdo terms that arise in the Antarctic have real relevance and will help you understand the tribulations faced by those early chaps. Such as: ‘Sastrugi’ is the name given to scultpured snow that looks like waves. ‘Firn’, the quality of snow as it falls and is compressed. ‘On the ice’ is to be in Antarctica; ‘off the ice’ is anywhere else (also known as ‘the real world’.  Chilling words describe how, if you are not adequately dressed, ie windproof and waterproof, you face hypothermia and death. ‘Yellow snow’ — I’ll leave you to guess.

The world’s largest glacier (the Lambert) is in Antarctica. If the ice sheet melted and released the land from its heavy weight, the land would rise by about 800m (a terrific diagram by Coral illustrates this). Some lichens on the coast of Antarctica have lived for four thousand years or more. Page after page is filled with fascinating facts, figures and personal reminiscences. A chef talks about cooking on Christmas Day in the freezing daylight of summer. A ship’s ice pilot describes “the most amazing, dangerous, unpredictable, frustrating and untamed place on Earth” and how he loves it with a passion. Antartica is made up of not one, but two, landmasses, called West (or Lesser) Antarctica and East (or Greater) Antarctica.  But no matter in which you are living at the time, you are permitted to devise your own postage stamps.

The book leaves you with the feeling that Antarctica is indeed rare and wondrous place.

Coral Tulloch sums up: “Antarctica is the only place on Earth that does not belong to one nation. It belongs to everyone. The whole world is responsible for taking care of this most precious continent. Its future lies with us all.” Patsy Hollis

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