Readers might finish this book more confused than when they began.
This short educational book is an introduction to gender for elementary-age kids.
On minimalist white pages with cheerful blocks of color that often turn out to be difficult-to-read words, the author invites readers to ponder the meaning of gender. The author shares their identity as a nonbinary trans person but does not pressure readers to identify their own. As part of a larger study of gender, this book would be a useful conversation starter, but it is neither specific nor clear enough to be an introductory text. Much of the vocabulary introduced is likely unfamiliar, and concepts are presented so broadly as to become meaningless, which raises the question of whether the book is really about gender. Certainly oversimplification does a disservice to children, but the author seems to be unable to produce definitions that support their points. For example, they imply that nothing is just for boys or girls, then go on to explain their nonbinary identity in terms of their gendered interests. The building blocks of a helpful text are here, but they are precariously stacked. The most valuable parts of the book are the advice allowing children space to be unsure about gender and to experiment as well as the acknowledgement that not everyone may understand your gender but that being yourself is worth it.
Readers might finish this book more confused than when they began. (additional resources) (Nonfiction. 5-8)Pub Date: May 17, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-951253-67-7
Page Count: 64
Publisher: A Kids Book About
Review Posted Online: May 18, 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
Enticing and eco-friendly.
Why and how to make a rain garden.
Having watched through their classroom window as a “rooftop-rushing, gutter-gushing” downpour sloppily flooded their streets and playground, several racially diverse young children follow their tan-skinned teacher outside to lay out a shallow drainage ditch beneath their school’s downspout, which leads to a patch of ground, where they plant flowers (“native ones with tough, thick roots,” Schaub specifies) to absorb the “mucky runoff” and, in time, draw butterflies and other wildlife. The author follows up her lilting rhyme with more detailed explanations of a rain garden’s function and construction, including a chart to help determine how deep to make the rain garden and a properly cautionary note about locating a site’s buried utility lines before starting to dig; she concludes with a set of leads to online information sources. Gómez goes more for visual appeal than realism. In her scenes, a group of smiling, round-headed, very small children in rain gear industriously lay large stones along a winding border with little apparent effort; nevertheless, her images of the little ones planting generic flowers that are tall and lush just a page turn later do make the outdoorsy project look like fun.
Enticing and eco-friendly. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781324052357
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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