Pedagogically useful in multiple ways, though not suitable for school or public library shelves.
Sheets of stickers and big, simple maps of each continent invite young naturalists to study dozens of animals, both common and endangered, in their natural environments.
Each of the 13 maps is colored to indicate biomes, features (where appropriate) country names and borders along with brief nature notes around the edges, and is lightly decorated with small, stylized, labeled images of major landforms and select wildlife. Many of the animals have dashes around them, which indicates that there is a matching sticker for each on one of the enclosed sheets (there is one sheet of less localized “general stickers” too). The attached envelope also contains a small folded world map that highlights eight biomes, a sheet of postcards with preprinted fill-in-the-blank messages, and a booklet with quiz questions that test animal recognition and map-reading skills as well as covering facts presented in the notes. Young readers persuaded to pore over the maps and use the stickers (at least as they are intended) will come away with a broader understanding of general geography as well as both animal and environmental diversity.
Pedagogically useful in multiple ways, though not suitable for school or public library shelves. (index) (Informational novelty. 5-7)Pub Date: April 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68297-341-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: QEB Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2018
Norma Dixon’s Lowdown on Earthworms (2005) digs deeper into the subject, but this lays fertile groundwork for budding...
Beginning readers who tunnel through this upbeat first introduction will “dig” them too.
After an opening look at several kinds of worm (including the candy sort), McCloskey drills down to the nitty-gritty on earthworms. He describes how they help soil with their digging and “poop” (“EEW!”) and presents full-body inside and outside views with labeled parts. He also answers in the worms’ collective voice such questions as “Why do you come out after the rain?” and “How big is the biggest worm in the world?” that are posed by a multiethnic cast of intent young investigators in the cartoon illustrations. A persistent but frustrated bluebird’s “Yum, yum!!” and rejected invitations to lunch offer indirect references to worms as food sources, and reproductive details are likewise limited to oblique notes that worms have big families “born from cocoons.” Single scenes mingle with short sequences of panels in pictures that are drawn on brown paper bags for an appropriately earthy look.
Norma Dixon’s Lowdown on Earthworms (2005) digs deeper into the subject, but this lays fertile groundwork for budding naturalists. (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 14, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-935179-80-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: TOON Books & Graphics
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2015
Another feather in McCloskey’s cap.
Budding naturalists who dug We Dig Worms! (2015) will, well, coo over this similarly enlightening accolade.
A curmudgeonly park visitor’s “They’re RATS with wings!” sparks spirited rejoinders from a racially diverse flock of children wearing full-body bird outfits, who swoop down to deliver a mess of pigeon facts. Along with being related to the dodo, “rock doves” fly faster than a car, mate for life, have been crossbred into all sorts of “fancies,” inspired Pablo Picasso to name his daughter “Paloma” in their honor, can be eaten (“Tastes like chicken”), and, like penguins and flamingos, create “pigeon milk” in their crops for their hatchlings. Painted on light blue art paper—“the kind,” writes McCloskey in his afterword, “used by Picasso”—expertly depicted pigeons of diverse breeds common and fancy strut their stuff, with views of the children and other wild creatures, plus occasional helpful labels, interspersed. In the chastened parkgoer’s eyes, as in those of the newly independent readers to whom this is aimed, the often maligned birds are “wonderful.” Cue a fresh set of costumed children on the final page, gearing up to set him straight on squirrels.
Another feather in McCloskey’s cap. (Graphic informational early reader. 5-7)Pub Date: April 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-935179-93-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: TOON Books & Graphics
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016
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