A thoroughly amusing way to introduce kids to bug behavior.
Are bugs good parents?
Are they loving and affectionate? Do they feed their offspring? Playful contrasts between human and insect behavior will captivate young readers as they listen to the read-aloud–friendly text and view the alternating cartoonlike spoofs on human living and detailed bug environments. In one picture, a bug hides its eyes and exclaims, “Where’s Baby?” to two excited baby bugs. The text reads: “Bugs don’t play peekaboo.” After the page turn, the text reads: “But tortoise beetle babies do get to hide.” The illustration displays an un-anthropomorphized tortoise beetle mother realistically sheltering “her young under her speckled shell.” The book uses this format throughout to show true insect behavior in a way that young children can absorb easily. On another page, the text reads: “For dinner bugs don’t make soup.” Some adults may not be charmed by the burying beetles that use their saliva to create a “soupy meal” in craters of mouse meat for their little ones, but kids will thoroughly enjoy these weird facts. The last spread shows an interracial family (white dad and black mom with a biracial child), lots of bug toys, and the message learned through this journey: “Bugs ARE like us” (“aren’t” is crossed out). Further information about the insects is presented in the informative backmatter along with an exhortation to get outside and explore nature.
A thoroughly amusing way to introduce kids to bug behavior. (bibliography) (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-58089-816-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
A solid addition to Rotner’s seasonal series. Bring on summer.
Rotner follows up her celebrations of spring and autumn with this look at all things winter.
Beginning with the signs that winter is coming—bare trees, shorter days, colder temperatures—Rotner eases readers into the season. People light fires and sing songs on the solstice, trees and plants stop growing, and shadows grow long. Ice starts to form on bodies of water and windows. When the snow flies, the fun begins—bundle up and then build forts, make snowballs and snowmen (with eyebrows!), sled, ski (nordic is pictured), skate, snowshoe, snowboard, drink hot chocolate. Animals adapt to the cold as well. “Birds grow more feathers” (there’s nothing about fluffing and air insulation) and mammals, more hair. They have to search for food, and Rotner discusses how many make or find shelter, slow down, hibernate, or go underground or underwater to stay warm. One page talks about celebrating holidays with lights and decorations. The photos show a lit menorah, an outdoor deciduous tree covered in huge Christmas bulbs, a girl next to a Chinese dragon head, a boy with lit luminarias, and some fireworks. The final spread shows signs of the season’s shift to spring. Rotner’s photos, as always, are a big draw. The children are a marvelous mix of cultures and races, and all show their clear delight with winter.
A solid addition to Rotner’s seasonal series. Bring on summer. (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3976-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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
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