A heaping helping of natural history, delivered with a wink.
An invitation to step into a small but bustling ecosystem.
“Fresh bison pie!” exclaims one dung beetle as it climbs onto a newly deposited pile of poop. “The perfect place to raise a family,” chortles another. “Dung for dinner!” “And dessert!” Young readers may not be so thrilled by the fecal find. But as they follow events on and under the melting brown bounty in Hevron’s close-up digital collages from one spring to the next over the course of a year, they’ll quickly be caught up in wonder. Flies swarm, meadowlarks and other hungry predators fly in for the insect banquet, pretty prairie violets and other wildflowers spring up, butterflies flutter, and prairie dogs burrow beneath (“Mmm, these roots are tangy!”). After eight months of “sunshine and showers,” the poo pile has become “a bouquet of…fragrant flowers, graceful grasses, and three thousand flies, beetles, and biters.” Winter brings a slower tempo for residents, identified in a final group portrait, and the following spring, mama bison is back…with a new little pooper in tow. Hevron blends whimsy and science for an enchanting and much-needed reminder that complex ecosystems can be found in the most unlikely of places. It’s all a grand cycle, laid out beautifully in the engaging art and recapped in an afterword that includes a tally of North American prairie habitats where viewers can watch things play out in real life.
A heaping helping of natural history, delivered with a wink. (additional reading, selected sources) (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781665935029
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
Another playful imagination-stretcher.
Markle invites children to picture themselves living in the homes of 11 wild animals.
As in previous entries in the series, McWilliam’s illustrations of a diverse cast of young people fancifully imitating wild creatures are paired with close-up photos of each animal in a like natural setting. The left side of one spread includes a photo of a black bear nestling in a cozy winter den, while the right side features an image of a human one cuddled up with a bear. On another spread, opposite a photo of honeybees tending to newly hatched offspring, a human “larva” lounges at ease in a honeycomb cell, game controller in hand, as insect attendants dish up goodies. A child with an eye patch reclines on an orb weaver spider’s web, while another wearing a head scarf constructs a castle in a subterranean chamber with help from mound-building termites. Markle adds simple remarks about each type of den, nest, or burrow and basic facts about its typical residents, then closes with a reassuring reminder to readers that they don’t have to live as animals do, because they will “always live where people live.” A select gallery of traditional homes, from igloo and yurt to mudhif, follows a final view of the young cast waving from a variety of differently styled windows.
Another playful imagination-stretcher. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781339049052
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK REVIEW
An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort.
A look at the unique ways that 11 globe-spanning animal species construct their homes.
Each creature garners two double-page spreads, which Cherrix enlivens with compelling and at-times jaw-dropping facts. The trapdoor spider constructs a hidden burrow door from spider silk. Sticky threads, fanning from the entrance, vibrate “like a silent doorbell” when walked upon by unwitting insect prey. Prairie dogs expertly dig communal burrows with designated chambers for “sleeping, eating, and pooping.” The largest recorded “town” occupied “25,000 miles and housed as many as 400 million prairie dogs!” Female ants are “industrious insects” who can remove more than a ton of dirt from their colony in a year. Cathedral termites use dirt and saliva to construct solar-cooled towers 30 feet high. Sasaki’s lively pictures borrow stylistically from the animal compendiums of mid-20th-century children’s lit; endpapers and display type elegantly suggest the blues of cyanotypes and architectural blueprints. Jarringly, the lead spread cheerfully extols the prowess of the corals of the Great Barrier Reef, “the world’s largest living structure,” while ignoring its accelerating, human-abetted destruction. Calamitously, the honeybee hive is incorrectly depicted as a paper-wasps’ nest, and the text falsely states that chewed beeswax “hardens into glue to shape the hive.” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
An arguable error of omission and definite errors of commission sink this otherwise attractive effort. (selected sources) (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5344-5625-9
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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