An uneven effort that is too often unhelpfully simplistic.
Lightweight answers to FAQs about such subjects as birthdays, libraries, pets and road trips.
In question-and-answer format—with each one allotted a two-page spread and accompanied by Ritchie’s loose-line, pastel-colored artwork—Ripley fields a range of questions. They include how batter turns into cake and how birthday candles stay on fire, why hamsters run on wheels and why they stuff their cheeks with food, why you hear the sea in a seashell and why the ocean is salty. The answers are both fruity with humor and specific as to the immediate explanation, but there is not much meat on the bones to many of the answers, even for the intended age group. This is true especially when it comes to secondary clarifications that would deepen understanding, because these answers are going to elicit plenty more “hows” and “whys.” Some of the questions ignite the “duh” factor: “Why do we wrap presents? Because surprises are fun! And because wrapping makes gifts look extra special.” There is a modest sense of repetition: “Why are some books hardcover and some paperback? Because different readers like different kinds of books!” (nor does the extended response do any better a job of answering the question) and “Why are dogs different sizes? Different dogs for different folks!” Then come really sharp explanations as to why tarantulas have hair and why gasoline has a strong odor.
An uneven effort that is too often unhelpfully simplistic. (Nonfiction. 5-8)Pub Date: May 15, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-926973-24-1
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Owlkids Books
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
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
Enticing and eco-friendly.
Why and how to make a rain garden.
Having watched through their classroom window as a “rooftop-rushing, gutter-gushing” downpour sloppily flooded their streets and playground, several racially diverse young children follow their tan-skinned teacher outside to lay out a shallow drainage ditch beneath their school’s downspout, which leads to a patch of ground, where they plant flowers (“native ones with tough, thick roots,” Schaub specifies) to absorb the “mucky runoff” and, in time, draw butterflies and other wildlife. The author follows up her lilting rhyme with more detailed explanations of a rain garden’s function and construction, including a chart to help determine how deep to make the rain garden and a properly cautionary note about locating a site’s buried utility lines before starting to dig; she concludes with a set of leads to online information sources. Gómez goes more for visual appeal than realism. In her scenes, a group of smiling, round-headed, very small children in rain gear industriously lay large stones along a winding border with little apparent effort; nevertheless, her images of the little ones planting generic flowers that are tall and lush just a page turn later do make the outdoorsy project look like fun.
Enticing and eco-friendly. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781324052357
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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