Spectacular photography enriches a simple, thoughtful text.
A multitude of photographs accompany bold, simple text, teaching rudimentary ideas of differentiating what’s living and what’s not—and noting that it’s not as simple as it may seem.
Every photograph is striking and colorful, sure to keep readers engaged. The first pages show photographs of things unmistakably living—from polar bears to cactuses—or nonliving—from a cresting ocean wave to a sea of automobiles. The heart of the text uses a few simple questions to try to determine what makes something living or nonliving, beginning with, “Are living things the only things that move?” A droll, humorous photomontage shows a droopy-eared basset gazing up at wildly swinging monkeys as a snail crawls nearby. The page turn reveals breathtaking photos of nonliving things that move—clouds, trains, waterfalls—and living things that (arguably) cannot move—coral, a tree, fungi. Growth, change, reproduction, and the needs for food, water, and oxygen are all examined similarly, leading to the conclusion that “Not even scientists have a perfect answer” to the question of what differentiates living from nonliving. A thoughtfully laid-out double-page spread concludes that there are five basic activities which usually guarantee that something is “probably a living thing.” Finally, there are four pages of enrichment activities, including colorful checklists that help reassure readers that such things as frogs are living, while robots and amethysts are nonliving. A Spanish-language edition, Seres vivos y no vivos, publishes simultaneously.
Spectacular photography enriches a simple, thoughtful text. (glossary, extended research section, checklists) (Informational picture book. 3-7)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62855-985-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Arbordale Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
A solid addition to Rotner’s seasonal series. Bring on summer.
Rotner follows up her celebrations of spring and autumn with this look at all things winter.
Beginning with the signs that winter is coming—bare trees, shorter days, colder temperatures—Rotner eases readers into the season. People light fires and sing songs on the solstice, trees and plants stop growing, and shadows grow long. Ice starts to form on bodies of water and windows. When the snow flies, the fun begins—bundle up and then build forts, make snowballs and snowmen (with eyebrows!), sled, ski (nordic is pictured), skate, snowshoe, snowboard, drink hot chocolate. Animals adapt to the cold as well. “Birds grow more feathers” (there’s nothing about fluffing and air insulation) and mammals, more hair. They have to search for food, and Rotner discusses how many make or find shelter, slow down, hibernate, or go underground or underwater to stay warm. One page talks about celebrating holidays with lights and decorations. The photos show a lit menorah, an outdoor deciduous tree covered in huge Christmas bulbs, a girl next to a Chinese dragon head, a boy with lit luminarias, and some fireworks. The final spread shows signs of the season’s shift to spring. Rotner’s photos, as always, are a big draw. The children are a marvelous mix of cultures and races, and all show their clear delight with winter.
A solid addition to Rotner’s seasonal series. Bring on summer. (Informational picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-8234-3976-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
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
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