A lively, fact-filled work about sparkling ocean creatures and their crucial roles.
A scuba-diving grandpa introduces readers to the world of microscopic life in the sea in this children’s science book.
The world’s oceans and freshwater environments teem with beneficial microscopic organisms called diatoms. In Franco-Feeney’s well-conceived work, sure to spark a sense of discovery, grade school–age readers are introduced to these creatures and to the essential roles they play in the aquatic food chain, medicine, biomedical research, industry, and the very health of the planet. In the first half of the book, pleasantly illustrated by the author, Bart and his sister, Amy, go scuba diving with their grandfather Saba. He promises to show them the “jewels of the sea”—not a pirate’s treasure, as they hope at first, but a rainbow of diatoms so tiny they can be seen only through a microscope or the special “micro-goggles” Saba has invented. As the siblings exclaim over the glasslike diatoms, Saba’s facts about the organisms include how they provide the world with “almost a quarter of all the oxygen we breathe” through their process of photosynthesis. How the trio is able to speak underwater isn’t explained, but Saba’s “oxygen-gathering machine” allows for a visit to the ocean floor, where dead diatoms, forming a substance called diatomaceous earth, contribute to life, too. (Young readers’ jaws may drop when they learn that this substance, found in such prosaic products as cat litter and toothpaste, was used centuries ago in building the pyramids.) The more substantial second half of the book, intended for adults to experience with children, expands on this information in captivating detail. Photographs add visual appeal to a clear presentation of astonishing diatom facts that underscores the contributions of those credited with the story’s inspiration: research scientist E. Ray Pariser, registered nurse Sandra R. Cramer, and scientist Anne Bartels Whitson. The real-life science adventure ends with a comprehensive glossary of words and terms, a bibliography, source material conveniently identified by where it is referenced in the book, and a note about the inclusion of otherworldly appearing diatom images shot by award-winning nature photographer Murawski.
A lively, fact-filled work about sparkling ocean creatures and their crucial roles.Pub Date: April 22, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-9726487-0-7
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Puddle Jump Press
Review Posted Online: April 16, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
“It’s time to head back home,” the narrator concludes. “You’ve touched the Earth in so many ways.” Who knew it would be so...
A pro bono Twinkie of a book invites readers to fly off in a magic plane to bring clean water to our planet’s oceans, deserts, and brown children.
Following a confusingly phrased suggestion beneath a soft-focus world map to “touch the Earth. Now touch where you live,” a shake of the volume transforms it into a plane with eyes and feathered wings that flies with the press of a flat, gray “button” painted onto the page. Pressing like buttons along the journey releases a gush of fresh water from the ground—and later, illogically, provides a filtration device that changes water “from yucky to clean”—for thirsty groups of smiling, brown-skinned people. At other stops, a tap on the button will “help irrigate the desert,” and touching floating bottles and other debris in the ocean supposedly makes it all disappear so the fish can return. The 20 children Coh places on a globe toward the end are varied of skin tone, but three of the four young saviors she plants in the flier’s cockpit as audience stand-ins are white. The closing poem isn’t so openly parochial, though it seldom rises above vague feel-good sentiments: “Love the Earth, the moon and sun. / All the children can be one.”
“It’s time to head back home,” the narrator concludes. “You’ve touched the Earth in so many ways.” Who knew it would be so easy to clean the place up and give everyone a drink? (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 11, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5107-2083-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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