A cleverly conceived and comprehensive introduction to a serious issue.
Ocean plastic threatens our world.
Pêgo, a marine biologist, has been documenting and collecting plastic from seashores for years. She gave it a scientific name, Plasticus maritimus, in 2015. In this comprehensive introduction, she explains and describes the problems plastics create in the oceans and other waterways. (The text, co-written with Minhós Martins, is presented in Pêgo’s first-person singular.) After an opening chapter about the importance of oceans, she provides a “field guide” to this invasive species, explaining what it is and why and how it is made, used, and discarded. She offers examples, both common and unusual, and tells her young readers how to look for it themselves. A third section offers sensible suggestions for what we can do to rethink, refuse, reduce, repair, reuse, and recycle to reduce the amount of plastic in our oceans. She devotes a final chapter to the difficulties of recycling this complex material. In conclusion, there are photographs of plastics found on beaches and a sculpture of a whale skeleton she created from it. (Her Facebook page includes more examples of her art, an activity that would probably appeal to young plastic collectors.) Ably translated from the Portuguese original by Springer, who also provided North American content, this text is not easy to read or think about, but confident, concerned readers will find it full of solid, useful information. Carvalho’s colored-pencil sketches as well as photographs enliven the pages.
A cleverly conceived and comprehensive introduction to a serious issue. (sources and resources) (Nonfiction. 10-16)Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77164-643-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Greystone Kids
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
Wordplay and wry wit put extra fun into a trove of fundamental knowledge.
With an amped-up sense of wonder, the Science Guy surveys the natural universe.
Starting from first principles like the scientific method, Nye and his co-author marvel at the “Amazing Machine” that is the human body then go on to talk up animals, plants, evolution, physics and chemistry, the quantum realm, geophysics, and climate change. They next venture out into the solar system and beyond. Along with tallying select aspects and discoveries in each chapter, the authors gather up “Massively Important” central concepts, send shoutouts to underrecognized women scientists like oceanographer Marie Tharp, and slip in directions for homespun experiments and demonstrations. They also challenge readers to ponder still-unsolved scientific posers and intersperse rousing quotes from working scientists about how exciting and wide open their respective fields are. If a few of those fields, like the fungal kingdom, get short shrift (one spare paragraph notwithstanding), readers are urged often enough to go look things up for themselves to kindle a compensatory habit. Aside from posed photos of Nye and a few more of children (mostly presenting as White) doing science-y things, the full-color graphic and photographic images not only reflect the overall “get this!” tone but consistently enrich the flow of facts and reflections. “Our universe is a strange and surprising place,” Nye writes. “Stay curious.” Words to live by.
Wordplay and wry wit put extra fun into a trove of fundamental knowledge. (contributors, art credits, selected bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 11-15)Pub Date: Oct. 27, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4676-5
Page Count: 264
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Aug. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Hot on the heels of the well-received Leonardo da Vinci (2005) comes another agreeably chatty entry in the Giants of Science series. Here the pioneering physicist is revealed as undeniably brilliant, but also cantankerous, mean-spirited, paranoid and possibly depressive. Newton’s youth and annus mirabilis receive respectful treatment, the solitude enforced by family estrangement and then the plague seen as critical to the development of his thoughtful, methodical approach. His subsequent squabbles with the rest of the scientific community—he refrained from publishing one treatise until his rival was dead—further support the image of Newton as a scientific lone wolf. Krull’s colloquial treatment sketches Newton’s advances in clearly understandable terms without bogging the text down with detailed explanations. A final chapter on “His Impact” places him squarely in the pantheon of great thinkers, arguing that both his insistence on the scientific method and his theories of physics have informed all subsequent scientific thought. A bibliography, web site and index round out the volume; the lack of detail on the use of sources is regrettable in an otherwise solid offering for middle-grade students. (Biography. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-670-05921-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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