A timely, basic, and, at least in spots, refreshingly frank overview.
A ghostly cat and other residents of the U.S. Capitol give a newly elected representative’s young daughter an introduction to Congress.
Left to her own devices while Mom takes care of official business, Alice finds a series of friendly tour guides—including the specters of a cat, James Madison, and Blanche Bruce, the first Black senator to serve a full term—who take her around the building and fill her in on the party and electoral systems, the jobs of each of the three branches as defined by the Constitution, and the legislative process. If Madison’s assertions that “we don’t put one person in charge of everything” and that only Congress makes laws “and even the president must follow them” will have ironic rings to readers up on current events (or, for that matter, U.S. history), such claims do at least indicate how the federal government is supposed to work. At times, though, the book offers a look at some harsher realities: A chart showing how bills become law includes some of the many ways a bill can die, Mihaly gives a nod toward the long struggle for equal voting rights for all, and the book provides a straightforward recap of the events of January 6, 2021. In the neatly drawn graphic panels, Alice (brown-skinned like her mother) encounters racially diverse groups of tourists, officials, and workers, including people who use wheelchairs.
A timely, basic, and, at least in spots, refreshingly frank overview. (glossary, facts about Congress, congressional firsts) (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780807512401
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Branches gently out into both natural science and human culture, albeit sparely.
A sweet sifting of tree- and forest-related facts and folklore.
Calling on the testimony of beasts and breezes for more far-flung topics, “Oakheart the Brave,” a gnarled oak with anthropomorphic features, offers an easygoing overview of forest types, seeds, tree fruits, and seasonal cycles interspersed with fragmentary versions of old tales. These last range from the story of how Nimue trapped Merlin and a heavily pruned account of an intrepid Hungarian lad who scales a “Sky-High Tree” to a Persian encounter between a wise girl and an invisible dragon beneath “The Tree of Life.” Other tales included hail from India, Scotland, and Norway. The “secret life” motif comes out occasionally, most clearly in explanations of the functions of each tree layer from bark on in. The notion that forests both give and need protection forms a strong secondary theme—leading up to a closing set of “How To Be Tree-Happy” activities such as recycling paper products and planting acorns to make new oaks. Mineker’s delicately detailed illustrations mix spot art with floating woodscapes as airy and uncluttered as the narrative. Human figures, though small and not common, do sport subtle differences in skin hues and generic period or regional dress.
Branches gently out into both natural science and human culture, albeit sparely. (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7112-5002-4
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Words & Pictures
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Playful measures and matches, whether measured in inches or dinosaurs.
Answers for anyone who has ever wondered whether a horse is faster than a hare or what the weight of a blue whale is—in tyrannosaurs.
In a mix of infographics and captions, both of which incorporate units of measure conventional and otherwise, each spread brings together assorted animals, weather phenomena, record setters, very big machines, or other thematically linked images or items as invitations to make comparisons. Along with being drawn reasonably close to scale, the figures are positioned to make those comparisons easy. They also often incorporate visual expressions of certain measures so that viewers can instantly contrast, for instance, the heights of the Empire State Building and the Burj Khalifa or the amount of water in a typical cat, dog, human (both baby and grown-up), cactus, and wedge of cheddar. Where humans are involved, as in lineups showing stages of development from newborn on or the seven children (one in a wheelchair) that measure up to one triceratops, Seixas consciously mixes gender presentations, races, and ages. Much of the information in the art and in Gifford’s quick comments looks to be averages or estimates—and is hard to check since sources go unmentioned. Still, this considerably streamlined spinoff of his The Book of Comparisons, illustrated by Paul Boston (2018), will clue younger audiences in to diverse ways of sizing up the world around them.
Playful measures and matches, whether measured in inches or dinosaurs. (Informational picture book. 7-9.)Pub Date: June 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-68464-086-7
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Kane Miller
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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