bookshelf

ARE SEA MONSTERS REAL?

Name: ARE SEA MONSTERS REAL?
Author: Ginjer L. Clarke
ISBN: 978-0-593-38394-0

From the Penguin Young Readers series

by Ginjer L. Clarke ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 5, 2022

Should make a huge splash with young mariners and monster lovers alike.

bookshelf

A rousing gallery of toothy and tentacled terrors of the past and present.

Along with creatures of legend, from the leviathan and the kraken to Nessie, Chessie (who supposedly lives in the Chesapeake Bay), and Champy (an alleged resident of Lake Champlain), Clarke describes with bone-crushing relish a selection of “Real-Life” and “Wannabe Sea Monsters”—such as prehistoric Dunkleosteus, which “had the strongest jaws of any fish ever. Slice! Dice!” (“It could have crushed a human like a bug!” the author continues.) While it may be stretching a point to link the Hydra of Homeric myth to the giant Pacific octopus, Clarke’s claims that supposed mermaids were really manatees or Steller’s sea cows and that kraken were giant squid are at least feasible…and there would likely be few to argue with her closing claim that Megalodon was “the scariest sea monster of all time.” With a few exceptions the accompanying mix of photos, digital art, and public domain prints seems staid in comparison, but the narrative, laced as it is with “Crunch! Munch!” sound effect words, injects more than enough melodrama to make up for the visuals.

Should make a huge splash with young mariners and monster lovers alike. (Nonfiction. 8-10)

Pub Date: July 5, 2022

ISBN: 978-0-593-38394-0

Page Count: 48

Publisher: Penguin Young Readers

Review Posted Online: April 26, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2022

Categories:

CHILDREN'S ANIMALS | CHILDREN'S DRAGONS & MYTHICAL CREATURES

- BOOK REVIEW
A WORLD OF DANCERS
by Ginjer L. Clarke

- BOOK REVIEW
LIFE IN THE GOBI DESERT
by Ginjer L. Clarke

bookshelf

1001 BEES

by Joanna Rzezak ; illustrated by Joanna Rzezak ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 18, 2021

Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere.

bookshelf

This book is buzzing with trivia.

Follow a swarm of bees as they leave a beekeeper’s apiary in search of a new home. As the scout bees traverse the fields, readers are provided with a potpourri of facts and statements about bees. The information is scattered—much like the scout bees—and as a result, both the nominal plot and informational content are tissue-thin. There are some interesting facts throughout the book, but many pieces of trivia are too, well trivial, to prove useful. For example, as the bees travel, readers learn that “onion flowers are round and fluffy” and “fennel is a plant that is used in cooking.” Other facts are oversimplified and as a result are not accurate. For example, monofloral honey is defined as “made by bees who visit just one kind of flower” with no acknowledgment of the fact that bees may range widely, and swarm activity is described as a springtime event, when it can also occur in summer and early fall. The information in the book, such as species identification and measurement units, is directed toward British readers. The flat, thin-lined artwork does little to enhance the story, but an “I spy” game challenging readers to find a specific bee throughout is amusing.

Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere. (Informational picture book. 8-10)

Pub Date: May 18, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-500-65265-7

Page Count: 32

Publisher: Thames & Hudson

Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021

Categories:

CHILDREN'S SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY | CHILDREN'S ANIMALS

- BOOK REVIEW
1001 BIRDS
by Joanna Rzezak ; illustrated by Joanna Rzezak

- BOOK REVIEW
1001 ANTS
by Joanna Rzezak ; illustrated by Joanna Rzezak

bookshelf

DO YOU KNOW LEECHES?

by Alain M. Bergeron ; Michel Quintin ; Sampar ; illustrated by Sampar ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 30, 2014

Strong-stomached browsers will lap these up; budding naturalists will find better intellectual nourishment elsewhere.

bookshelf

A dribble of scientific information about everyone’s favorite bloodsucking worm provides a Canadian cartoonist with opportunities for some rousingly icky visual commentary.

The informational text comprises such lines as “Most leeches live in fresh water,” or “Oftentimes, doctors would apply up to 100 leeches per session,” arranged in no discernible order and placed inconspicuously at the bottom of each page. They caption cartoon scenes of a young collector cheerfully dumping a slimy bucketful into his horrified parent’s bathwater, a doctor leaning over a desiccated patient (“Something tells me we might have left these leeches on a bit too long”), a child refusing to enter a pond for fear of the creatures—unaware that her back is covered with them—and other views of comically caricatured leeches and their prey in action or conversation. Though readers will be at least exposed to some basic information about these creatures’ habitats, body parts, dietary habits, reproductive practices and uses in medicine, Sampar’s gross-out gags and comics will definitely make, and leave, the more lasting impression. This outing is published with seven series mates that offer less revolting but no less superficial (and, OK, diverting) introductions to chameleons, crocodiles, crows, porcupines, rats, spiders and toads.

Strong-stomached browsers will lap these up; budding naturalists will find better intellectual nourishment elsewhere. (glossary, index) (Graphic nonfiction. 8-10)