A useful title for Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day.
A boy visits a special place while on vacation.
Jack and his parents fly to a city where cherry blossoms bloom. Views from the plane and a glimpse of the Washington Monument from the airport offer clues to their destination. The city and sights are unnamed in the simple, easy-to-read text but recognizable from the pleasant, serviceable illustrations. On their trip to the nation’s capital, the family visits the Air and Space Museum, the Spy Museum, the Lincoln Memorial, the zoo, and Capitol Hill (where Jack shakes hands with “somebody important from back home”). On the last day of the trip, they visit Arlington National Cemetery, which Jack at first finds “boring,” but his attention is captured by the 21-step march of the soldier guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Brallier nicely captures the solemn poignancy of this monument to soldiers who fell in battle, far from home, unidentified. The family then visits the World War II Memorial and the Vietnam War Memorial. Beginning the trip home, Jack spots an Army Ranger in uniform in the waiting area. He runs to offer his thanks, and “the unknown soldier”—a jarring phrase, given that this soldier is alive and has a name—stands to respond. Jack and his father present as Asian, his mother is light-skinned, and the Army Ranger presents as Black. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A useful title for Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day. (more information on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier) (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-62354-159-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
A common topic ably presented—with a participatory element adding an unusual and brilliant angle.
To the tune of a familiar ditty, budding paleontologists can march, dig, and sift with a crew of dinosaur hunters.
Modeling her narrative after “Here We Go ’Round the Mulberry Bush,” Lendroth (Old Manhattan Has Some Farms, 2014, etc.) invites readers to add appropriate actions and gestures as they follow four scientists—modeled by Kolar as doll-like figures of varied gender and racial presentation, with oversized heads to show off their broad smiles—on a dig. “This is the way we clean the bones, clean the bones, clean the bones. / This is the way we clean the bones on a warm and sunny morning.” The smiling paleontologists find, then carefully excavate, transport, and reassemble the fossil bones of a T. rex into a museum display. A fleshed-out view of the toothy specimen on a wordless spread brings the enterprise to a suitably dramatic climax, and unobtrusive notes in the lower corners capped by a closing overview add digestible quantities of dino-detail and context. As in Jessie Hartland’s How the Dinosaur Got to the Museum (2011), the combination of patterned text and bright cartoon pictures of scientists at accurately portrayed work offers just the ticket to spark or feed an early interest in matters prehistoric.
A common topic ably presented—with a participatory element adding an unusual and brilliant angle. (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-62354-104-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
It’s a bit sketchy of historical detail, but it’s coherent, inspirational, and engaging without indulging in rapturous...
A first introduction to the iconic civil rights activist.
“She was very little and very brave, and she always tried to do what was right.” Without many names or any dates, Kaiser traces Parks’ life and career from childhood to later fights for “fair schools, jobs, and houses for black people” as well as “voting rights, women’s rights and the rights of people in prison.” Though her refusal to change seats and the ensuing bus boycott are misleadingly presented as spontaneous acts of protest, young readers will come away with a clear picture of her worth as a role model. Though recognizable thanks to the large wire-rimmed glasses Parks sports from the outset as she marches confidently through Antelo’s stylized illustrations, she looks childlike throughout (as characteristic of this series), and her skin is unrealistically darkened to match the most common shade visible on other African-American figures. In her co-published Emmeline Pankhurst (illustrated by Ana Sanfelippo), Kaiser likewise simplistically implies that Great Britain led the way in granting universal women’s suffrage but highlights her subject’s courageous quest for justice, and Isabel Sánchez Vegara caps her profile of Audrey Hepburn (illustrated by Amaia Arrazola) with the moot but laudable claim that “helping people across the globe” (all of whom in the pictures are dark-skinned children) made Hepburn “happier than acting or dancing ever had.” All three titles end with photographs and timelines over more-detailed recaps plus at least one lead to further information.
It’s a bit sketchy of historical detail, but it’s coherent, inspirational, and engaging without indulging in rapturous flights of hyperbole. (Picture book/biography. 5-7)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-78603-018-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
