A steady flow of specific information and general reassurance.
Let a chirpy rhinovirus fill you in on how viruses attack and how our immune system responds!
It all starts with a cold sufferer’s sneeze, which sends the cheery narrator and fellow virions (or virus particles) into the air, “fly[ing] in droplets of snot to…your nose!” Once viruses click into receptors and shoot their RNA into a nasal cell’s interior, it’s off to the races as chemical alerts trigger floods of mucus and bring legions of white blood cells charging in to eat the invaders. Just to make the drama a little less scary, Ciccotello kits out cells, viruses, antibodies, and Pac Man–like white blood cells with comically expressive faces in his cartoon illustrations—pulling back at intervals to show a brown-skinned child obliviously spreading germs to a racially diverse group of friends, lying in bed spooning soup to help the mucus flow, and finally returning to everyday life once the cold (or, by implication, other affliction) has run its course. Heos keeps the information flowing, too, as she goes on to describe the functions of different types of white blood cells and, zeroing in on smallpox as a particular success story, identifies several viral maladies, including Covid-19, for which effective vaccines have been developed. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A steady flow of specific information and general reassurance. (glossary, further reading, bibliography) (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: April 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-30293-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe.
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40.
From two Nobel Peace Prize winners, an invitation to look past sadness and loneliness to the joy that surrounds us.
Bobbing in the wake of 2016’s heavyweight Book of Joy (2016), this brief but buoyant address to young readers offers an earnest insight: “If you just focus on the thing that is making / you sad, then the sadness is all you see. / But if you look around, you will / see that joy is everywhere.” López expands the simply delivered proposal in fresh and lyrical ways—beginning with paired scenes of the authors as solitary children growing up in very different circumstances on (as they put it) “opposite sides of the world,” then meeting as young friends bonded by streams of rainbow bunting and going on to share their exuberantly hued joy with a group of dancers diverse in terms of age, race, culture, and locale while urging readers to do the same. Though on the whole this comes off as a bit bland (the banter and hilarity that characterized the authors’ recorded interchanges are absent here) and their advice just to look away from the sad things may seem facile in view of what too many children are inescapably faced with, still, it’s hard to imagine anyone in the world more qualified to deliver such a message than these two. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-48423-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
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