Incredible artwork lifts a simple story.
Jessie the elephant takes an unusual trip to her brand-new home.
In the early 20th century, the zoo at Moore Park in Sydney, Australia, moved to the suburb of Taronga. Most of the animals were transported by truck, but Jessie was far too large for any vehicle, so she simply walked through the town in the early morning before most people had awakened, then boarded a ferry. This picture book chronicles Jessie’s travels. She surprises the milkman’s horse, alarms an onlooker, and ambles over grass, always walking calmly with her keeper, Mr. Miller, even as others react in shock. After she makes it across in the ferry, she arrives at her new home, greeted by lions and monkeys. The author’s note sheds light on the true story of the animals’ move, explaining that the fastest route was via ferry, since the Sydney Harbour Bridge hadn’t yet been built. Much like Jessie’s journey, the story is a quiet one, though the illustrations give it life. The most stunning images depict Jessie’s early-morning start, the pale pinks in the sky set against an otherwise blue-washed layout; Jessie’s face and eyes are rendered with careful detail. Readers will appreciate the beautiful art and the novelty of an elephant’s walk through town.
Incredible artwork lifts a simple story. (map, photos) (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781761180309
Page Count: 32
Publisher: A & U Children/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
A simple but effective look at a keystone species.
Sea otters are the key to healthy kelp forests on the Pacific coast of North America.
There have been several recent titles for older readers about the critical role sea otters play in the coastal Pacific ecosystem. This grand, green version presents it to even younger readers and listeners, using a two-level text and vivid illustrations. Biologist Buhrman-Deever opens as if she were telling a fairy tale: “On the Pacific coast of North America, where the ocean meets the shore, there are forests that have no trees.” The treelike forms are kelp, home to numerous creatures. Two spreads show this lush underwater jungle before its king, the sea otter, is introduced. A delicate balance allows this system to flourish, but there was a time that hunting upset this balance. The writer is careful to blame not the Indigenous peoples who had always hunted the area, but “new people.” In smaller print she explains that Russian explorations spurred the development of an international fur trade. Trueman paints the scene, concentrating on an otter family threatened by formidable harpoons from an abstractly rendered person in a small boat, with a sailing ship in the distance. “People do not always understand at first the changes they cause when they take too much.” Sea urchins take over; a page turn reveals a barren landscape. Happily, the story ends well when hunting stops and the otters return…and with them, the kelp forests.
A simple but effective look at a keystone species. (further information, select bibliography, additional resources) (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: May 26, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7636-8934-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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
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