A splashing success.
Introducing the ocean’s most feared predator.
Stunning illustrations grace this account of a pregnant great white shark’s journey northward to warmer waters, where she will give birth in an unknown location. She finds food along the way—a young seal pup and, later, a sea turtle. The two-level narrative features a graceful read-aloud text and additional information in a smaller font. Writing in easily understood prose, Saxby discusses the great white’s appearance, ability to adjust body temperature, speed and power, hunting prowess, parental care (none—mother sharks don’t stick around after birth), undiscriminating appetite (great white taste buds distinguish only between food and not food), and lack of interest in humans. In her picture-book debut, Lane uses seawater and “found natural pigments” among other materials (watercolor, pastel, pencil, and digital drawing and collage), a nice touch. Color and light are used to great effect to convey the darkness of ocean depths and the changing hues of the water. Cutaway views add interest. The kills are dramatic but sensitively portrayed; the shark’s explosion out of the water to grab the turtle is a wonderful surprise. There are plenty of titles about this perennial favorite sea creature, but this could become a favorite. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A splashing success. (more information on great whites, index) (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-5362-2503-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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
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