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AFTERNOON ON A HILL

Romantic and bracing.

A poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay gets an illustrated treatment.

The 12 lines of Millay’s 1917 poem provide the whole text for this glorious nature outing. “I will be the gladdest thing / Under the sun!” opens the adventure, as the anonymous first-person narrator runs over grassy hills wearing a short-sleeved calico dress and sneakers. The poem can be read literally as realism, but in the illustrations, a fantasy realm grows. When the lines say “I will touch a hundred flowers / And not pick one,” a single flower grows to the scale of a sapling. The heads of massive birds peer out from between trees, their eyes intense and just this side of ominous. A forest, from a long view, is shaped like an animal, absorbing (not reflecting) sunlight even while the narrator’s peachy skin glows with reflected sun. When the poem lets the protagonist “[w]atch the wind bow down the grass, / And the grass rise,” the grass becomes a horizontally billowing ocean for the child to windsurf on, standing upright on an enormous leaf, arms outstretched, hair streaming. The illustrations are all full-bleed spreads; each has a different light. Domeniconi offsets acute, scientific-feeling, almost overpowering visual details on flowers and birds against vague, generic skies and distant trees. At dusk, lights glow in the distant town, and the narrator beds down—nestled in the antlers of a mighty animal, possibly an elk.

Romantic and bracing. (Picture book. 4-9)

Pub Date: March 12, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-56846-334-6

Page Count: 14

Publisher: Creative Editions/Creative Company

Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2019

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ADA TWIST AND THE PERILOUS PANTS

From the Questioneers series , Vol. 2

Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book.

Ada Twist’s incessant stream of questions leads to answers that help solve a neighborhood crisis.

Ada conducts experiments at home to answer questions such as, why does Mom’s coffee smell stronger than Dad’s coffee? Each answer leads to another question, another hypothesis, and another experiment, which is how she goes from collecting data on backyard birds for a citizen-science project to helping Rosie Revere figure out how to get her uncle Ned down from the sky, where his helium-filled “perilous pants” are keeping him afloat. The Questioneers—Rosie the engineer, Iggy Peck the architect, and Ada the scientist—work together, asking questions like scientists. Armed with knowledge (of molecules and air pressure, force and temperature) but more importantly, with curiosity, Ada works out a solution. Ada is a recognizable, three-dimensional girl in this delightfully silly chapter book: tirelessly curious and determined yet easily excited and still learning to express herself. If science concepts aren’t completely clear in this romp, relationships and emotions certainly are. In playful full- and half-page illustrations that break up the text, Ada is black with Afro-textured hair; Rosie and Iggy are white. A closing section on citizen science may inspire readers to get involved in science too; on the other hand, the “Ode to a Gas!” may just puzzle them. Other backmatter topics include the importance of bird study and the threat palm-oil use poses to rainforests.

Adventure, humor, and smart, likable characters make for a winning chapter book. (Fiction. 6-9)

Pub Date: April 16, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-4197-3422-9

Page Count: 144

Publisher: Amulet/Abrams

Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019

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MAMA BUILT A LITTLE NEST

A good bet for the youngest bird-watchers.

Echoing the meter of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” Ward uses catchy original rhymes to describe the variety of nests birds create.

Each sweet stanza is complemented by a factual, engaging description of the nesting habits of each bird. Some of the notes are intriguing, such as the fact that the hummingbird uses flexible spider web to construct its cup-shaped nest so the nest will stretch as the chicks grow. An especially endearing nesting behavior is that of the emperor penguin, who, with unbelievable patience, incubates the egg between his tummy and his feet for up to 60 days. The author clearly feels a mission to impart her extensive knowledge of birds and bird behavior to the very young, and she’s found an appealing and attractive way to accomplish this. The simple rhymes on the left page of each spread, written from the young bird’s perspective, will appeal to younger children, and the notes on the right-hand page of each spread provide more complex factual information that will help parents answer further questions and satisfy the curiosity of older children. Jenkins’ accomplished collage illustrations of common bird species—woodpecker, hummingbird, cowbird, emperor penguin, eagle, owl, wren—as well as exotics, such as flamingoes and hornbills, are characteristically naturalistic and accurate in detail.

A good bet for the youngest bird-watchers.   (author’s note, further resources) (Informational picture book. 4-7)

Pub Date: March 18, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-4424-2116-5

Page Count: 40

Publisher: Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2014

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