Evergreen encouragement for young gardeners in the making.
As the seasons progress, a family passes down lessons in gardening.
“Grandpa told Mom, and Mom told me: The secret of a plant lives in every little seed.” As spring melts the winter snow, Grandpa, Mom, and a child garden as a pet dog and wildlife watch closely. Readers are told how to best care for seeds; a labeled page of garden tools will be especially useful. The complexity of what happens under the soil is shown in one stunning illustration, and the colors change to vibrant spring tones as the flowers blossom. “Hungry guests” arrive, such as bees and butterflies, as well as spiders that protect plants from pests. Even as said pests make an appearance—Japanese beetles, brown marmorated stink bugs, and more—the art is still adorable, showing a solution to the problem as the child sprays “sticky, soapy water.” Fall colors take over again as the book draws to a close. With backmatter explaining more about seeds and what to watch out for when you’re gardening, the book is a solid how-to, with cyclic storytelling and an appealing art style. It may not be the first of its kind but it’s a welcome tale. Mom, Grandpa, and the child are light-skinned; Mom and the child have dark hair, while Grandpa is gray-haired. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Evergreen encouragement for young gardeners in the making. (Picture book. 4-9)Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 9781534112698
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Erupt into applause for this picture book of the first magma-tude.
A deceptively simple, visually appealing, comprehensive explanation of volcanoes.
Gibbons packs an impressive number of facts into this browsable nonfiction picture book. The text begins with the awe of a volcanic eruption: “The ground begins to rumble…ash, hot lava and rock, and gases shoot up into the air.” Diagrams of the Earth’s structural layers—inner and outer core, mantle, and crust—undergird a discussion about why volcanoes occur. Simple maps of the Earth’s seven major tectonic plates show where volcanoes are likeliest to develop. Other spreads with bright, clearly labeled illustrations cover intriguing subtopics: four types of volcanoes and how they erupt; underwater volcanoes; well-known volcanoes and historic volcanic eruptions around the world; how to be safe in the vicinity of a volcano; and the work of scientists studying volcanoes and helping to predict eruptions. A page of eight facts about volcanoes wraps things up. The straightforward, concise prose will be easy for young readers to follow. As always, Gibbons manages to present a great deal of information in a compact form.
Erupt into applause for this picture book of the first magma-tude. (Nonfiction picture book. 4-9)Pub Date: Jan. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4569-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
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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