Schanzer indicates in endnotes that she bases her account on Smith's own writings. The author indeed accomplishes her aim of showing that "this swashbuckling Englishman was a heroic warrior.a daring world explorer, a president, a mapmaker, a peacekeeper" and finally an author. Yet the cheery illustrative style belies the often harsh nature of Smith's experiences, such as the time he was brutally beaten as a slave near the Black Sea or when Native Americans burn one of his fellow explorers at the stake (depicted in a small spot illustration). Schanzer offsets the formal borders with the cartoonlike artwork within a smiling, ruddy-cheeked Smith often winks or waves at readers, even as a baby. Interspersed between chapters (with titles such as "Escape Number One: Our Hero Is Tossed into the Briny Deep and Becomes a Pirate"), spreads appear that feature a map of Smith's travels on the left with numbers that correspond to captioned panel illustrations on the right. Her inventive chronological format alternately expands and condenses Smith's feats and far-flung journeys, as she describes his numerous death-defying escapes (e.g., from shipwrecks, Turkish slave masters and Native American warriors). ) attests in this vivid, extensively documented biography of the 17th-century explorer. The lore of Captain John Smith extends far beyond the familiar Pocahontas story, as Schanzer ( How We Crossed the West
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