Budding naturalists, even younger ones, can easily find more dependable and systematic guides to their backyard biota.
Digital tweaks add interactive features to this edition of an insect ABC (originally packaged in 2007 as a book/CD set).
The 26 alphabetically arranged entrants include such usual suspects as the Ladybug and Praying mantis, along with the less-familiar likes of the Velvet ant and Olive fruit fly. Each gets a close-up painted portrait done in an arbitrary range of styles from photorealism to crayon sketch, a perfunctory rhymed caption—“The inchworm likes to crawl around / and eat leaves every day…”—and, with a tap on the highlighted name, a boxed snippet of explanation or further detail. A menu can be opened on any screen that allows skipping, starting over and replacing the optional audio reading with a self-recording. Problems abound. The Japanese beetle illustrated is either a rare variety or some other sort of beetle. Along with failing to mention that the Inchworm is a caterpillar or that it and the other three larvae included in the alphabetical roster will look different as adults, the author incorrectly claims that Unicorn caterpillars lay eggs. Her observation that a sawfly (Xyelidae) is “like a wasp but not the same” is both unexplained in the verse and contradicted in the accompanying note. She also characterizes collecting Fireflies in a jar as a “fun activity” but neglects to recommend letting them go afterward.
Budding naturalists, even younger ones, can easily find more dependable and systematic guides to their backyard biota. (iPad informational app. 5-8)Pub Date: April 11, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Oceanhouse Media
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2014
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
One of the watershed moments in African-American history—the defeat of James Braddock at the hands of Joe Louis—is here given an earnest picture-book treatment. Despite his lack of athletic ability, Sammy wants desperately to be a great boxer, like his hero, getting boxing lessons from his friend Ernie in exchange for help with schoolwork. However hard he tries, though, Sammy just can’t box, and his father comforts him, reminding him that he doesn’t need to box: Joe Louis has shown him that he “can be the champion at anything [he] want[s].” The high point of this offering is the big fight itself, everyone crowded around the radio in Mister Jake’s general store, the imagined fight scenes played out in soft-edged sepia frames. The main story, however, is so bent on providing Sammy and the reader with object lessons that all subtlety is lost, as Mister Jake, Sammy’s father, and even Ernie hammer home the message. Both text and oil-on-canvas-paper illustrations go for the obvious angle, making the effort as a whole worthy, but just a little too heavy-handed. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: May 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-58430-161-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Lee & Low Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2004
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