An attractive entree to a vital subject for the youngest citizens.
Earth’s beauty and fragility provide the impetus for activism in this introduction to climate change.
In the opening and concluding compositions, Bell’s gouache and digital full-bleed spreads employ a circular motif to frame and represent the book’s subject. “One person. / Small, quiet, / insignificant” appears on the landscape, a brown-skinned child wearing shorts and a green, flowing scarf. Observant readers will follow this character throughout the narrative. As the population grows, the planet changes; readers see traffic congestion, deforestation, cattle farms, and air pollution. The impact on this gorgeous world is shown as a polar bear and its young glide by on separate ice floes, floods and wildfires arrive with changing seasons, and parched farmland yields dried-up crops. Challenging concepts are conveyed simply: Greenhouse gases are shown stifling the globe like a “too-warm blanket.” Soontornvat repeats “when one person, / and one person, / and one person / become many” to first show the negative effects on the planet and then the possibilities when more people use solar panels, install wind turbines, and plant gardens. By the time the protagonist joins marchers in Washington, D.C., diverse throngs fill the pages. Their signs and subsequent letters to a city council, a senator, and a grandmother (“I went to my very first climate march yesterday”) suggest concrete ways for children to make a difference. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
An attractive entree to a vital subject for the youngest citizens. (author’s note, sources) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-338-62861-6
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 21, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2022
A solid addition to Rotner’s seasonal series. Bring on summer.
Rotner follows up her celebrations of spring and autumn with this look at all things winter.
Beginning with the signs that winter is coming—bare trees, shorter days, colder temperatures—Rotner eases readers into the season. People light fires and sing songs on the solstice, trees and plants stop growing, and shadows grow long. Ice starts to form on bodies of water and windows. When the snow flies, the fun begins—bundle up and then build forts, make snowballs and snowmen (with eyebrows!), sled, ski (nordic is pictured), skate, snowshoe, snowboard, drink hot chocolate. Animals adapt to the cold as well. “Birds grow more feathers” (there’s nothing about fluffing and air insulation) and mammals, more hair. They have to search for food, and Rotner discusses how many make or find shelter, slow down, hibernate, or go underground or underwater to stay warm. One page talks about celebrating holidays with lights and decorations. The photos show a lit menorah, an outdoor deciduous tree covered in huge Christmas bulbs, a girl next to a Chinese dragon head, a boy with lit luminarias, and some fireworks. The final spread shows signs of the season’s shift to spring. Rotner’s photos, as always, are a big draw. The children are a marvelous mix of cultures and races, and all show their clear delight with winter.
A solid addition to Rotner’s seasonal series. Bring on summer. (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3976-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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
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