Arboreal adoration that will indeed leave readers feeling thankful for our wooded world.
What’s so great about trees?
Everything, according to this picture-book tribute to our green companions. Using just a few words on each double-page spread, Ziefert enumerates the many environmental, social, culinary, and aesthetic contributions that trees make to the world. Firstly, trees nourish humans and animals with food; several pages of artwork show people picking pecans and tapping syrup and animals nibbling on leaves, nuts, and berries. Trees also provide comfort; readers are given a tour of the many wooden objects found in our homes, such as “a floor for your feet,” comfy chairs, a baby’s cradle, and more. In this fashion, the book moves through items made from trees that are used in the spheres of music, art, and recreation before ending with a look at the ways trees provide homes for animals and a clarion call for protecting trees as air purifiers and vital sustainers of human life. Narrated in rhyming couplets that scan well, this book manages to pack a lot of thought-provoking concepts into a short format in a cohesive, engaging way. Fitzgerald’s colorful, stylized digital illustrations brim with outdoorsy charm and highlight the many beautiful textures and grain patterns of tree barks and cut wood. The ensemble cast is diverse in race, skin tone, hair color, hair texture, and age.
Arboreal adoration that will indeed leave readers feeling thankful for our wooded world. (Informational picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 29, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-63655-020-6
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Red Comet Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A good introduction to observation, data, and trying again.
Cece loves asking “why” and “what if.”
Her parents encourage her, as does her science teacher, Ms. Curie (a wink to adult readers). When Cece and her best friend, Isaac, pair up for a science project, they choose zoology, brainstorming questions they might research. They decide to investigate whether dogs eat vegetables, using Cece’s schnauzer, Einstein, and the next day they head to Cece’s lab (inside her treehouse). Wearing white lab coats, the two observe their subject and then offer him different kinds of vegetables, alone and with toppings. Cece is discouraged when Einstein won’t eat them. She complains to her parents, “Maybe I’m not a real scientist after all….Our project was boring.” Just then, Einstein sniffs Cece’s dessert, leading her to try a new way to get Einstein to eat vegetables. Cece learns that “real scientists have fun finding answers too.” Harrison’s clean, bright illustrations add expression and personality to the story. Science report inserts are reminiscent of The Magic Schoolbus books, with less detail. Biracial Cece is a brown, freckled girl with curly hair; her father is white, and her mother has brown skin and long, black hair; Isaac and Ms. Curie both have pale skin and dark hair. While the book doesn’t pack a particularly strong emotional or educational punch, this endearing protagonist earns a place on the children’s STEM shelf.
A good introduction to observation, data, and trying again. (glossary) (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 19, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-249960-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: March 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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