Don't be fooled by the cover - this is no simple picture book exploration of tall buildings. Craigie explores different approaches, motivations, and impacts of tall buildings. It's a lot to digest, so best to take it in a little at a time.

This non-fiction text is approximately 80 pages and is divided into 11 chapters with titles such as “security, ingenuity and utility” answering the question “why humans build up”? The book explores historic structures, interesting architectural and engineering concepts and the math, science and art behind tall structures. It is truly a book for anyone who loves STEAM. With a mix of illustrations and real photos, images help readers visualize the scientific concepts and the buildings being discussed. The text is quite small and there is a fair amount on a page, but there is a good amount of detail. As a grade 3 teacher, I would recommend this book to parents and teachers of children in the age 9-14 range. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to read and review this book!

I liked this detailed look into cities. There was a good mix of illustrations vs photos with lots of information given. I think kids will be drawn in by this book and enjoy going through its pages.

This book takes a look at all sorts of tall structures, from the space needle to the Eiffel tower to totem poles of the First Nations. There are wonderful photographs and the book is stuffed full of interesting facts. A great addition to any library.

An excellent and very educational book on the reasons for the existence of impressively tall structures on our planet's history, all man-made and spread across the globe, that will be a great resource for schools to teach children and teens about the topic in a concise, readable, and fun manner. It can also be enjoyed by adults, it's a quick read and you learn a few things about buildings you might be passing by every day without paying much attention.

In short and well-illustrated chapters, Craigie tells us about the motives that have compelled us to build upwards to literally scratch the skies. He contends there's eleven reasons that have driven the rise of tall structures throughout history from the ancient Egyptians and their pyramids to filthy rich Persian Gulf emirs and their astoundingly tall towers, reasons ranging from necessities of life such as security that made us build tall-walled castles to vanity that made us build luxury high-rise condos, as well as other deeper motives like spirituality, that is behind the tall cathedrals, to ingenuity, utility, efficiency, and even rivalry between builders. It's been so interesting to learn the diverse causes people have taken up to justify building up and making structures taller and taller and taller as technology progresses and we find new ways to use material and space. So very fascinating! And this book includes illustrations of the examples cited for each reason behind such buildings, too.

The book itself is a quick and interesting read, but it is not user friendly in ebook version. I got the book through Netgalley, but it won't let read it through their app (can't be read with Kindle either). The book had to be downloaded and once i did it, the book was in very small format withthe only app that opened it. I zoomed it, but even that is limited and still too small to read comfortably, so i didn't want to strain my eyes and didn't finish reading

This is such a cool book! It organizes its explorations of tall buildings around big themes like spirituality, defense, luxury, and sustainability. It includes amazing illustrations alongside photos, and in each chapter features a theme with examples, stories, key architectural features and more. It seemed fairly inclusive of buildings from throughout the world -- featuring buildings across continents. This would be fun reading with a middle grade or older kid really interested in buildings!