A primer on poop and a guessing game, especially for those just beyond toilet training.
Owl pellets, coprolites, bird droppings, and honking big turds—whose waste is that?
Lunde uses a question-and-answer format to show how animal droppings vary and how they relate to animals’ diets. This picture book may seem slight, covering only seven animals (fox, African elephant, panda, owl, Galápagos tortoise, gull, and the extinct ground sloth), but it reflects a careful choice of examples demonstrating the wide variety of animal diets, eating styles, and defecation habits. Four pages are devoted to each animal. The first double-page spread shows a series of footprints and a mysterious object, asks the title question (or a variant), and describes the object. The page turn reveals the animal, pictured in its habitat. A short paragraph tells why the poop contains what readers see. Feces fans can find further information in two pages of backmatter, “The Scoop on Poop” and “Animal Poop Facts.” Oseid’s illustrations, done in pen and ink and colored digitally, have shadows suggesting the three-dimensionality of the droppings and pleasing, soothing color choices. For a younger audience than most recent titles about animal excrement, this might make a nice pair with Taro Gomi’s classic Everyone Poops (2001).
A primer on poop and a guessing game, especially for those just beyond toilet training. (Informational picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-57091-798-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story.
A home-renovation project is interrupted by a family of wrens, allowing a young girl an up-close glimpse of nature.
Renata and her father enjoy working on upgrading their bathroom, installing a clawfoot bathtub, and cutting a space for a new window. One warm night, after Papi leaves the window space open, two wrens begin making a nest in the bathroom. Rather than seeing it as an unfortunate delay of their project, Renata and Papi decide to let the avian carpenters continue their work. Renata witnesses the birth of four chicks as their rosy eggs split open “like coats that are suddenly too small.” Renata finds at a crucial moment that she can help the chicks learn to fly, even with the bittersweet knowledge that it will only hasten their exits from her life. Rosen uses lively language and well-chosen details to move the story of the baby birds forward. The text suggests the strong bond built by this Afro-Latinx father and daughter with their ongoing project without needing to point it out explicitly, a light touch in a picture book full of delicate, well-drawn moments and precise wording. Garoche’s drawings are impressively detailed, from the nest’s many small bits to the developing first feathers on the chicks and the wall smudges and exposed wiring of the renovation. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-20-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
Renata’s wren encounter proves magical, one most children could only wish to experience outside of this lovely story. (Picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-593-12320-1
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies.
Pigeon finds something better to drive than some old bus.
This time it’s Santa delivering the fateful titular words, and with a “Ho. Ho. Whoa!” the badgering begins: “C’mon! Where’s your holiday spirit? It would be a Christmas MIRACLE! Don’t you want to be part of a Christmas miracle…?” Pigeon is determined: “I can do Santa stuff!” Like wrapping gifts (though the accompanying illustration shows a rather untidy present), delivering them (the image of Pigeon attempting to get an oversize sack down a chimney will have little ones giggling), and eating plenty of cookies. Alas, as Willems’ legion of young fans will gleefully predict, not even Pigeon’s by-now well-honed persuasive powers (“I CAN BE JOLLY!”) will budge the sleigh’s large and stinky reindeer guardian. “BAH. Also humbug.” In the typically minimalist art, the frustrated feathered one sports a floppily expressive green and red elf hat for this seasonal addition to the series—but then discards it at the end for, uh oh, a pair of bunny ears. What could Pigeon have in mind now? “Egg delivery, anyone?”
A stocking stuffer par excellence, just right for dishing up with milk and cookies. (Picture book. 4-6)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781454952770
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
