Sweet notes aplenty in an episode featuring a young DIYer with both music and science in her life.
Young Mia gets a start on her dreams of becoming a guitar hero by studying how the instrument makes sounds.
Dazzled after watching her older cousin Keeley shredding with a band in the park, Mia uses book and web resources to find out about the history and construction of (acoustic) guitars. Then, after demonstrating with a simple kitchen physics experiment how sound waves work, she makes a cardboard instrument by stringing a cracker box with big rubber bands. Having shown her dad (and readers) how to control pitch and amplitude, she debuts at her grandpa’s backyard birthday party, and if “it didn’t sound much like ‘Happy Birthday to You,’ ” as Stier realistically comments, she still gets an enthusiastic response from her extended family…and better yet a real starter guitar from latecomer Keeley, who joins her delighted cousin for a glorious set of tunes. Mia and her family are brown-skinned. Several of the adult women in Rosa’s bright, simply drawn cartoons wear hijabs, and the party’s guest of honor is clad in a thobe. There is some racial diversity visible in group scenes. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Sweet notes aplenty in an episode featuring a young DIYer with both music and science in her life. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 27, 2023
ISBN: 9780807572788
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Amusing but a little off tempo.
It’s important to hit all the right notes.
A tan-skinned musical composer with puffy black hair is busy at work on his next musical masterpiece when Half Note, a music symbol denoting two beats, feels unappreciated. Half Note is jealous of the more commonly used Quarter Note (one beat) and Eighth Note. Although the other musical symbols attempt to calm and comfort Half Note, she decides to run away. The next day, Composer needs Half Note and panics when he realizes that she’s gone. The other notes and musical symbols try to find her, but it’s only when they try to play her favorite song, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” without her—with terrible results—that she comes running back. The story’s humor—which is largely based on “dad joke” puns—is completely dependent on readers’ musical knowledge. The artwork, a mix of acrylic and colored pencil, attempts to add some allegrezza to the piece, and while it’s not unsuccessful, it’s facing an uphill battle. Music teachers and musically minded caregivers may find some value in this story, but it will likely be too specialized for general readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Amusing but a little off tempo. (glossary) (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-64567-631-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Page Street
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
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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