Mission most definitely accomplished, thanks to lucid explanations and a steady focus on participatory instruction.
A quick course in rocket science and aerodynamics features ’50s-style retro illustrations and rrrrobust narrrration in a Scots accent.
As introduction, readers are invited to wave a sheet of paper to experience air resistance, then fold it into an airplane (step diagrams provided) and “[t]hrow it as hard as you can into the sky and see how you get on” to watch gravity in action. A flashback through history offers interactive ganders at gunpowder and early rockets. This is followed by further demonstrations (with very simple animations) that show how modern rockets use controlled thrust, stabilizing fins and stages to counter atmospheric effects, the aforementioned gravity and even changes in the center of gravity to reach outer space. Tapping occasional “More Science!” tabs opens sidebars with additional details. A final exam of sorts challenges readers to assemble a rocket from correctly chosen parts, which leads to a dramatic takeoff and a congratulatory “Jnr Astronaut” designation. American readers may miss English equivalents to the metric measurements, but this may prove a salutary reminder that the rest of the world eschews pounds and miles. Though a three-round bout with Mexican wrestler “El Gravitino” partway along is more distracting than instructive, children will come away with a firm grasp of rocketry’s basic principles as well as some relevant physics, such as the difference between “mass” and “weight.”
Mission most definitely accomplished, thanks to lucid explanations and a steady focus on participatory instruction. (iPad informational app. 6-8)Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Immediate Media Company
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2013
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
The wriggly narrator of Diary of a Worm (2003) puts in occasional appearances, but it’s his arachnid buddy who takes center stage here, with terse, tongue-in-cheek comments on his likes (his close friend Fly, Charlotte’s Web), his dislikes (vacuums, people with big feet), nervous encounters with a huge Daddy Longlegs, his extended family—which includes a Grandpa more than willing to share hard-won wisdom (The secret to a long, happy life: “Never fall asleep in a shoe.”)—and mishaps both at spider school and on the human playground. Bliss endows his garden-dwellers with faces and the odd hat or other accessory, and creates cozy webs or burrows colorfully decorated with corks, scraps, plastic toys and other human detritus. Spider closes with the notion that we could all get along, “just like me and Fly,” if we but got to know one another. Once again, brilliantly hilarious. (Picture book. 6-8)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-06-000153-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Joanna Cotler/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
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