A perspicuous first glance, with radiant illustrations.
Brilliant illustrations teeming with living creatures light up this quick introduction to the biosphere’s six kingdoms.
To the enduring irritation of tidy-minded taxonomists, living things resist falling into neat categories, but the six-kingdom structure (animals, plants, fungi, protists, bacteria, and archaea) is broadly accepted as a useful working model, and Allen-Fletcher makes a game effort to briefly define and distinguish each—while properly pointing to pesky misfits as she goes. So it is that plants draw energy from sunlight but, she notes, so do green sea slugs; aspen trees, unlike most plants, reproduce by cloning. Still, she leaves younger readers with at least basic ideas of prominent characteristics that most members of each kingdom share and offers glimpses of select examples, both typical and oddball. For more technical-minded audiences, she wraps up by briefly mentioning the subdivisions within kingdoms and noting renowned taxonomists such as Carl Linnaeus and al-Dīnawarī. Allen-Fletcher closes with the scientific names of all 164 species that crowd her vivid montages with numbered, naturalistic images. If it’s not always clear which specimen in the crowd she means when referring to “these” corals or edible mushrooms, life’s astonishing variety of hues, forms, and habitats definitely comes through. Tiny human observers in a racially diverse array put in occasional appearances, too.
A perspicuous first glance, with radiant illustrations. (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2024
ISBN: 9780802855916
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Eerdmans
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
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
A lighthearted first look at an increasingly useful skill.
Grown-ups may not be the only audience for this simple explanation of how algorithms work.
Taking a confused-looking hipster parent firmly in hand, a child first points to all the computers around the house (“Pro Tip: When dealing with grown-ups, don’t jump into the complicated stuff too fast. Start with something they already know”). Next, the child leads the adult outside to make and follow step-by-step directions for getting to the park, deciding which playground equipment to use, and finally walking home. Along the way, concepts like conditionals and variables come into play in street maps and diagrams, and a literal bug stands in for the sort that programmers will inevitably need to find and solve. The lesson culminates in an actual sample of very simple code with labels that unpack each instruction…plus a pop quiz to lay out a decision tree for crossing the street, because if “your grown-up can explain it, that shows they understand it!” That goes for kids, too—and though Spiro doesn’t take the logical next step and furnish leads to actual manuals, young (and not so young) fledgling coders will find plenty of good ones around, such as Get Coding! (2017), published by Candlewick, or Rachel Ziter’s Coding From Scratch (2018).
A lighthearted first look at an increasingly useful skill. (glossary) (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9781623543181
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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