An entertaining account of a remarkable fossil hunter and an educational journey into the world of dinosaur fossils.
The story of a real-life fossil hunter.
Growing up, Wendy Sloboda had an unusually keen eye for spotting things in the natural world. On a class field trip to the badlands, near her hometown of Alberta, Canada, the 12-year-old found a piece of fossilized coral and learned from her teacher that this now arid area was once an underwater sea. Wendy continued to explore, and when she was 17, she discovered a fossilized dinosaur eggshell, which prompted a full-blown paleontological excavation. Since becoming a paleontology technician, Wendy has traveled the world and discovered thousands of dinosaur fossils, including a new species—named after her—the Wendiceratops. The book’s colorful illustrations both enliven the narrative and, through their simplicity, feel completely accessible to young readers. A notable design feature is a double-page foldout that takes readers from the present-day desertlike area of the Alberta badlands to (when the pages are unfolded) the same area 80 million years ago. Another foldout opens an illustration of a fossilized dinosaur egg to show the embryo contained within. Wendy is light-skinned; secondary illustrated characters vary in terms of skin tone and ability; one character wears a hijab. Copious backmatter includes more information about Wendy, fossil formation, how to find fossils, and more. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
An entertaining account of a remarkable fossil hunter and an educational journey into the world of dinosaur fossils. (glossary, books and websites) (Informational picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 7, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0418-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2022
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses.
An NBA star pays tribute to the influence of his grandfather.
In the same vein as his Long Shot (2009), illustrated by Frank Morrison, this latest from Paul prioritizes values and character: “My granddad Papa Chilly had dreams that came true,” he writes, “so maybe if I listen and watch him, / mine will too.” So it is that the wide-eyed Black child in the simply drawn illustrations rises early to get to the playground hoops before anyone else, watches his elder working hard and respecting others, hears him cheering along with the rest of the family from the stands during games, and recalls in a prose afterword that his grandfather wasn’t one to lecture but taught by example. Paul mentions in both the text and the backmatter that Papa Chilly was the first African American to own a service station in North Carolina (his presumed dream) but not that he was killed in a robbery, which has the effect of keeping the overall tone positive and the instructional content one-dimensional. Figures in the pictures are mostly dark-skinned. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Blandly inspirational fare made to evoke equally shrink-wrapped responses. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-81003-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
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