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POP-UP MOON

Name: POP-UP MOON
Author: Anne Jankéliowitch
ISBN: 978-0-500-65186-5

by Anne Jankéliowitch ; illustrated by Olivier Charbonnel & Annabelle Buxton ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 8, 2021

Light on informational payload but a blast for display or demonstration.

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A lunar flyby, with notes on our largest satellite’s origins, phases, and tidal effects enhanced by pop-ups.

As in its predecessor, Pop-Up Earth (2021), paper engineer Charbonnel’s 3-D constructs are showstoppers that make the narrative text and the flat illustrations come off as afterthoughts. Still, though author Jankéliowitch leaves special terms like umbra and penumbra undefined, she does cover lunar basics (including comparisons with select moons orbiting other planets) in simple language. Similarly, if the human faces are White in all but one of illustrator Buxton’s scenes, her maps and diagrammatic views of the moon as it orbits between the sun and Earth are clean and easy to understand. As the final spread on the Apollo missions includes no mention of later developments, readers will come away uninformed of current plans for return visits, which is a shame. Still, after taking ganders at the huge planetary collision at the opening, the astronaut waving through the large clear plastic screen of an antique TV from the moon’s surface at the close, and the spectacular constructs in between, they may well be tempted into the orbit of Elaine Scott’s Our Moon (2016) to find out the full story.

Light on informational payload but a blast for display or demonstration. (Informational pop-up picture book. 7-9)

Pub Date: June 8, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-500-65186-5

Page Count: 18

Publisher: Thames & Hudson

Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
POP-UP EARTH
by Anne Jankéliowitch ; illustrated by Olivier Charbonnel & Annabelle Buxton

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I AM GRAVITY

by Henry Herz ; illustrated by Mercè López ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 15, 2024

An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe.

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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

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS
edited by Henry Herz

- BOOK REVIEW
WINK
edited by Henry Herz ; illustrated by Adam Gustavson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE HITHERTO SECRET EXPERIMENTS OF MARIE CURIE
edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt & Henry Herz

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HOW TO EXPLAIN CODING TO A GROWN-UP

From the How To Explain Science series

by Ruth Spiro ; illustrated by Teresa Martínez ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 10, 2023

A lighthearted first look at an increasingly useful skill.

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Grown-ups may not be the only audience for this simple explanation of how algorithms work.

Taking a confused-looking hipster parent firmly in hand, a child first points to all the computers around the house (“Pro Tip: When dealing with grown-ups, don’t jump into the complicated stuff too fast. Start with something they already know”). Next, the child leads the adult outside to make and follow step-by-step directions for getting to the park, deciding which playground equipment to use, and finally walking home. Along the way, concepts like conditionals and variables come into play in street maps and diagrams, and a literal bug stands in for the sort that programmers will inevitably need to find and solve. The lesson culminates in an actual sample of very simple code with labels that unpack each instruction…plus a pop quiz to lay out a decision tree for crossing the street, because if “your grown-up can explain it, that shows they understand it!” That goes for kids, too—and though Spiro doesn’t take the logical next step and furnish leads to actual manuals, young (and not so young) fledgling coders will find plenty of good ones around, such as Get Coding! (2017), published by Candlewick, or Rachel Ziter’s Coding From Scratch (2018).

A lighthearted first look at an increasingly useful skill. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 7-9)