Charmingly encourages our own environmental efforts.
A small town in Japan has become famous for its zero waste plan.
This latest in Drummond’s Green Power series, which explores successful sustainability projects, highlights a Japanese town committed to careful recycling, reuse of what they have, and reduction of further purchasing. As always, he tells his story in ways that will connect with his audience. Using clear, conversational prose punctuated with cheerful, color-washed pen-and-ink drawings and even some speech bubbles, he describes two children’s visit to their grandmother in Kamikatsu. They help her sort her recycling into different bins: nine for paper, six for plastic, five for metals, six for glass, and so on—nearly 50 different kinds of waste in all! Along the way, they learn about the differences among the materials. Grandma introduces and translates several relevant Japanese proverbs. Later, they visit the massive public recycling center, and Grandma recaps the history of the town’s zero waste project. As a young mother (clad in flowered bell-bottoms), she, too, unthinkingly threw trash away. But after the town’s dump and incinerator were deemed environmentally hazardous and closed, she and others began to work to reduce their waste stream. Their goal was to become a zero waste town by 2020. They recycle more than 80% of their waste and have become a model known around the world. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Charmingly encourages our own environmental efforts. (author’s note with photographs, further reading) (Informational picture book. 5-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 9780374388409
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe.
An introduction to gravity.
The book opens with the most iconic demonstration of gravity, an apple falling. Throughout, Herz tackles both huge concepts—how gravity compresses atoms to form stars and how black holes pull all kinds of matter toward them—and more concrete ones: how gravity allows you to jump up and then come back down to the ground. Gravity narrates in spare yet lyrical verse, explaining how it creates planets and compresses atoms and comparing itself to a hug. “My embrace is tight enough that you don’t float like a balloon, but loose enough that you can run and leap and play.” Gravity personifies itself at times: “I am stubborn—the bigger things are, the harder I pull.” Beautiful illustrations depict swirling planets and black holes alongside racially diverse children playing, running, and jumping, all thanks to gravity. Thorough backmatter discusses how Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity and explains Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. While at times Herz’s explanations may be a bit too technical for some readers, burgeoning scientists will be drawn in.
An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe. (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: April 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668936849
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tilbury House
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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