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SO MANY WAYS TO BE A BIRD

Engaging and informative.

A text that explores diversity in birds.

This appealing title showcases some of the most obvious adaptations that differentiate bird species, including size, feet, flight, nests, eggs, hatchlings, beaks, and vocalizations, each in a spread or two. A concluding spread summarizes these adaptations and adds the range of colors, obvious throughout Anderson’s careful collage portraits. She introduces topics in large text using occasional rhyming couplets, internal rhymes, alliteration, and frequent repetition of the phrase “so many ways.” Each spread includes examples, with dozens of labeled species. The birds may be familiar or unfamiliar, but the information will be intriguing—robins have three toes in front and one in back to hold on to a branch while perching; woodpeckers cling to trees with two toes each in front and back; the common murre’s egg is tapered so that it can only roll in a circle, not off the cliff where it was laid. The egg is shown on a spread of variously sized, shaped, and colored eggs, some of which are “wee as a pea.” The narrative reads aloud smoothly, and the illustrations show well. Readers who are also knowledgeable birders will appreciate the way every bird, identified or not, is recognizable. For young readers or browsers, the two-level text offers flexibility. Accurate and interesting facts and imagery will make this a positive addition to readers’ nature collections.

Engaging and informative. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 4-8)

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2024

ISBN: 9781595729927

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Star Bright

Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2024

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FIND MOMO EVERYWHERE

From the Find Momo series , Vol. 7

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 Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be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

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WHAT IF YOU HAD AN ANIMAL HOME!?

From the What if You Had . . .? series

Another playful imagination-stretcher.

Markle invites children to picture themselves living in the homes of 11 wild animals.

As in previous entries in the series, McWilliam’s illustrations of a diverse cast of young people fancifully imitating wild creatures are paired with close-up photos of each animal in a like natural setting. The left side of one spread includes a photo of a black bear nestling in a cozy winter den, while the right side features an image of a human one cuddled up with a bear. On another spread, opposite a photo of honeybees tending to newly hatched offspring, a human “larva” lounges at ease in a honeycomb cell, game controller in hand, as insect attendants dish up goodies. A child with an eye patch reclines on an orb weaver spider’s web, while another wearing a head scarf constructs a castle in a subterranean chamber with help from mound-building termites. Markle adds simple remarks about each type of den, nest, or burrow and basic facts about its typical residents, then closes with a reassuring reminder to readers that they don’t have to live as animals do, because they will “always live where people live.” A select gallery of traditional homes, from igloo and yurt to mudhif, follows a final view of the young cast waving from a variety of differently styled windows.

Another playful imagination-stretcher. (Informational picture book. 6-8)

Pub Date: May 7, 2024

ISBN: 9781339049052

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Scholastic

Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024

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