An important topic that warrants further exploration—and deserves better execution.
A girl learns about her “technology tail,” or digital footprint.
The lesson is delivered by a preteen’s laptop screen that suddenly comes to life and starts speaking, telling the child (who has light brown skin and straight brown hair) about how online activities can follow users and influence the way people think about them. Understandably, much of the focus is on refraining from posting mean things online and being aware of others’ feelings, but there are also lessons on safety and security. It all boils down to a didactic lesson, taught in very uneven prose—the screen frequently speaks in verse with an abcb rhyming pattern but just as frequently doesn’t, and there’s no real rhyme or reason as to why it drops in and out of verse. Occasional moments feel more like curriculum bullet points than parts of a cohesive whole, such as a brief definition of “keyboard courage” (saying things online that a person would never say out loud) and running all posts through a “think” test (THINK corresponding to True, Helpful, Inspiring, Necessary, and Kind). At other points, concerns expressed feel older than those a rhyming picture book’s audience would share. Aside from mismatches between content and delivery, the disproportionate art style, featuring characters (of many races) with oversized caricature heads, further obfuscates the characters’ ages.
An important topic that warrants further exploration—and deserves better execution. (Picture book. 6-12)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-944882-13-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Boys Town Press
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists.
How to raise money for a coveted poster: put your friends to work!
John, founder of the FUBU fashion line and a Shark Tank venture capitalist, offers a self-referential blueprint for financial success. Having only half of the $10 he needs for a Minka J poster, Daymond forks over $1 to buy a plain T-shirt, paints a picture of the pop star on it, sells it for $5, and uses all of his cash to buy nine more shirts. Then he recruits three friends to decorate them with his design and help sell them for an unspecified amount (from a conveniently free and empty street-fair booth) until they’re gone. The enterprising entrepreneur reimburses himself for the shirts and splits the remaining proceeds, which leaves him with enough for that poster as well as a “brand-new business book,” while his friends express other fiscal strategies: saving their share, spending it all on new art supplies, or donating part and buying a (math) book with the rest. (In a closing summation, the author also suggests investing in stocks, bonds, or cryptocurrency.) Though Miles cranks up the visual energy in her sparsely detailed illustrations by incorporating bright colors and lots of greenbacks, the actual advice feels a bit vague. Daymond is Black; most of the cast are people of color. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
It’s hard to argue with success, but guides that actually do the math will be more useful to budding capitalists. (Picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: March 21, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-593-56727-2
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2023
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often...
A successful juvenile by the beloved New Yorker writer portrays a farm episode with an imaginative twist that makes a poignant, humorous story of a pig, a spider and a little girl.
Young Fern Arable pleads for the life of runt piglet Wilbur and gets her father to sell him to a neighbor, Mr. Zuckerman. Daily, Fern visits the Zuckermans to sit and muse with Wilbur and with the clever pen spider Charlotte, who befriends him when he is lonely and downcast. At the news of Wilbur's forthcoming slaughter, campaigning Charlotte, to the astonishment of people for miles around, spins words in her web. "Some Pig" comes first. Then "Terrific"—then "Radiant". The last word, when Wilbur is about to win a show prize and Charlotte is about to die from building her egg sac, is "Humble". And as the wonderful Charlotte does die, the sadness is tempered by the promise of more spiders next spring.
The three way chats, in which they are joined by other animals, about web spinning, themselves, other humans—are as often informative as amusing, and the whole tenor of appealing wit and pathos will make fine entertainment for reading aloud, too.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 1952
ISBN: 978-0-06-026385-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1952
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
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