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
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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