by Kari-Lynn Winters & Lori Sherritt-Fleming ; illustrated by Peggy Collins ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 15, 2018
The overarching concept, introducing children to science subjects using humor, is solid; too bad the verse doesn’t rise to...
Whimsical rhymes describe a range of science topics for a younger audience.
Magnetism, geology, and the life cycle of a flea are just a few of the topics explored in this bright, energetic picture book. Appealing illustrations show a diverse array of characters gardening, building, sensing, and experimenting, with forays into the solar system and the animal kingdom as well. Each full-page spread presents a poem, and it is here that the book begins to fall down. The poems vary in structure: Some are rhyming couplets, some alternate rhymed and unrhymed lines, a few utilize repetition. However, only some of the stanzas effectively utilize meter, so readers are often required to wrench syllables around in order to get them to scan, marring the reading experience whether it’s to oneself or to an audience. The wacky poem about chemistry, for example, concludes “Hurray for the Captain! / The King of Chemistry! / His all-purpose cleaner / is also earth friend-ly!” Some of the scenarios are fun, others are more meditative, and the titular piece seems intended to encourage girls in STEM, but the educational possibilities are overall stymied by the versification.
The overarching concept, introducing children to science subjects using humor, is solid; too bad the verse doesn’t rise to the occasion. (Picture book/poetry. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-55455-396-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Fitzhenry & Whiteside
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
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by Kari-Lynn Winters ; illustrated by Kelly Collier
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by Kari-Lynn Winters & Lori Sherritt-Fleming ; illustrated by Peggy Collins
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by Kari-Lynn Winters ; illustrated by Scot Ritchie
by Michelle Schaub ; illustrated by Blanca Gómez ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 12, 2024
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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by Michelle Schaub ; illustrated by Claire LaForte
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by Michelle Schaub ; illustrated by Alice Potter
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by Michelle Schaub ; illustrated by Amy Huntington
by Shelley Rotner ; photographed by Shelley Rotner ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 5, 2017
Bruce Goldstone’s Awesome Autumn (2012) is still the gold standard.
Rotner follows Hello Spring (2017) with this salute to the fall season.
Name a change seen in northern climes in fall, and Rotner likely covers it here, from plants, trees, and animals to the food we harvest: seeds are spread, the days grow shorter and cooler, the leaves change and fall (and are raked up and jumped in), some animals migrate, and many families celebrate Halloween and Thanksgiving. As in the previous book, the photographs (presented in a variety of sizes and layouts, all clean) are the stars here, displaying both the myriad changes of the season and a multicultural array of children enjoying the outdoors in fall. These are set against white backgrounds that make the reddish-orange print pop. The text itself uses short sentences and some solid vocabulary (though “deep sleep” is used instead of “hibernate”) to teach readers the markers of autumn, though in the quest for simplicity, Rotner sacrifices some truth. In several cases, the addition of just a few words would have made the following oversimplified statements reflect reality: “Birds grow more feathers”; “Cranberries float and turn red.” Also, Rotner includes the statement “Bees store extra honey in their hives” on a page about animals going into deep sleep, implying that honeybees hibernate, which is false.
Bruce Goldstone’s Awesome Autumn (2012) is still the gold standard. (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3869-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
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More by Gwen Agna
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by Gwen Agna & Shelley Rotner ; photographed by Shelley Rotner
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by Shelley Rotner ; illustrated by Shelley Rotner
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by Gwen Agna & Shelley Rotner ; photographed by Shelley Rotner
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