Complete with a wise old turtle and a motherly bunny, this is charming and accessible science for young naturalists.
Follow an inquisitive little field mouse as he leaves the safety of his nest and explores the world outside for the first time.
Realistic and with a mouse-eye-view perspective, the interactive illustrations add drama and wonder as he encounters the other animals that inhabit his meadow. They may prove to be helpful or dangerous or simply curious, and they begin to reveal the interconnected ecosystem therein. He meets a very busy bee gathering pollen and learns how that is essential to the overall food supply. He narrowly escapes becoming part of the food chain when he passes too close to a fearsome garter snake, and soon after learning that fireflies use their lights to find mates, he finds himself sitting under the moon with a new mouse friend. Recounted in rhyme and populated with anthropomorphized animals, Wallace’s tale introduces somewhat sophisticated natural science concepts and vocabulary—metamorphosis and chrysalis, for instance—in an appealing storybook format. Interactions aren’t razzle-dazzle but nicely appropriate; tapping the mouse causes him to lean forward and twitch his nose inquisitively, which can’t help but increase readers’ engagement as well. Kid-friendly explanations and additional information about habitat are provided in a separate section at the end of the story.
Complete with a wise old turtle and a motherly bunny, this is charming and accessible science for young naturalists. (iPad storybook app. 5-8)Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2014
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dawn Publications
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound.
The titular cookie runs off the page at a bookstore storytime, pursued by young listeners and literary characters.
Following on 13 previous How To Catch… escapades, Wallace supplies sometimes-tortured doggerel and Elkerton, a set of helter-skelter cartoon scenes. Here the insouciant narrator scampers through aisles, avoiding a series of elaborate snares set by the racially diverse young storytime audience with help from some classic figures: “Alice and her mad-hat friends, / as a gift for my unbirthday, / helped guide me through the walls of shelves— / now I’m bound to find my way.” The literary helpers don’t look like their conventional or Disney counterparts in the illustrations, but all are clearly identified by at least a broad hint or visual cue, like the unnamed “wizard” who swoops in on a broom to knock over a tower labeled “Frogwarts.” Along with playing a bit fast and loose with details (“Perhaps the boy with the magic beans / saved me with his cow…”) the author discards his original’s lip-smacking climax to have the errant snack circling back at last to his book for a comfier sort of happily-ever-after.
A brisk if bland offering for series fans, but cleverer metafictive romps abound. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7282-0935-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Wonderland
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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