Spooky Lakes by Geo Rutherford

Spooky Lakes by Geo Rutherford features twenty-five strange and mysterious lakes found on planet Earth. The book opens with an introduction to limnology, the study of lakes. "A lake is typically a large body of water surrounded by land." They are found in all regions of our planet and can vary in size, depth, shape, and colour. Lakes can be created by glaciers, dormant volcanoes, earthquakes, meteorites and dams. A second chapter, titled Lake Facts offers seventeen fascinating facts about lakes including that Canada has the most lakes of any country at almost two million!

The lakes profiled begin with Lake Superior, famous for its violent storms, one of which sank the Edmund Fitzgerald in November of 1975. One feature of Lake Superior is its cold, fresh water that is bacteria-free, meaning that shipwrecks often are in excellent condition. It also means that those crew who are trapped within the ships, do not decay and can be seen floating inside.

Lake Karachay in Russia is one example of a lake that is contaminated with radioactive waste from a nuclear facility, making it deadly. The Mayak facility located near the lake, exploded in 1957, spewing highly radioactive material into the surrounding environment. Today the lake is a "...dry nuclear waste storage facility" having been filled with tons of concrete blocks, rocks and dirt. 

Perhaps one of the most fascinating lakes is Lake Maracaiho, located in Venezuela, South America. This lake "...is illuminated by thousands of lightning strikes" almost every night of the year. There can be as many as twenty-eight lightning strikes per minute during the frequent storms over the lake. The geography and climate are the primary factors which result in a large number of storms forming over the lake.

Lake Nyos is a very deep volcanic crater lakes in the African country of Cameroon. On August 22, 1986, over seventeen hundred people, their pets and livestock were found dead in the area adjacent to the lake. It was determined that a massive cloud of carbon dioxide gas, from a limnic explosion, raced down the crater sides of Lake Nyos, killing every living thing in its path including insects.

Lake Vostok can be found more than two miles beneath the ice sheet in Antarctica. However, this lake is not frozen! This is due to the immense pressure of the overlying ice sheet. This means that water remains a liquid at temperatures lower than its freezing point of 32 F. It is also believed that the lake is heated from below by a geothermal vent. The lake was discovered by the Russian military and there is now a Russian research station over it. A borehole was drilled to the lake reaching the water surface in 2012. It is not known if sampling the water of Lake Vostok resulted in contamination of its pristine waters.

These are just five of the remarkable lakes profiled in Spooky Lakes.

Discussion

Spooky Lakes profiles twenty-five unique lakes providing a detailed overview of this geographical feature that is so common on our planet. 

What is a "spooky" take on many unusual lakes, is also a fascinating and fact-filled read.  There are lakes created by glaciation such as Lake Superior, lakes that are extremely toxic such as Lake Nyos. There are lava lakes such Mount Nyiragongo Lava Lake, lakes of pitch or natural asphalt like those in La Brea, Trinidad, lakes polluted from nuclear waste such as Lake Karachay, and lakes created by atomic blasts. There are lakes formed from rock slides like Lake Kaindy in Kazakhstan which features a well-preserved submerged forest. 

Rutherford explains many interesting science concepts in Spooky Lakes. For example, she describes how human bodies come to be preserved in the cold, fresh water of Lake Superior. Readers will learn why some lave flows faster than other lava, due to a lower silica content. In describing Yellowstone Hot Springs, the author explains how the hot springs are part of a the Yellowstone Supervolcano complex.

There are also many cultural references included where relevant. For example, Pitch Lake in Trinidad is believed to be "...a site of mythical punishment" by the Indigenous Arawah people. The section on Lake Guatavita explains the origin of the legend of El Dorado, the mythical city of gold that the Spanish were so determined to find.

Spooky Lakes is richly illustrated by author Geo Rutherford, who hand-painted them using gouache on watercolour paper. A fun twist to this book is the placement of tiny ghosts throughout many of the illustrations, which the author encourages her readers to look for!

Although the illustrations are colourful and simply wonderful, it would have been interesting to see photographs of these lakes where possible. Nevertheless, Spooky Lakes, with its catchy title, lovely artwork and large format size is likely to engage many young readers.

Book Details:

Spooky Lakes by Geo Rutherford

New York: Abrams Books For Young Readers     2024
96 pp