Lebek: A City of Northern Europe Through the Ages
Grade 6-12-- The handsomely detailed two-page black-and-white drawings are an attractive feature of this book, as they were with the authors' previous description of the growth of a European city, Barmi: A Mediterranean City Through the Ages (Houghton, 1990) . This time, readers can trace through text and illustrations, the development of a typical Hanseatic city in Northern Europe. This mythical composite municipality is based on cities such as Lubeck, Hamburg, or Amsterdam, whose wealth was derived from the sea. The first double-page spread shows Lebek as it might have looked in 1,000 b.c. , when it was a timber stockaded village huddling on an island in a North Sea estuary. The modern megalopolis, spreading out in all directions and protected by a complex system of dikes and canals, is a far cry from the humble beginnings. In between, all the different stages of Lebek's evolution are charted by the carefully written text and marvelous illustrations. --David N. Pauli, Missoula Public Library, MTCopyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.