Poetic, revealing, and visually delightful.
A tree can provide a place for many forest residents to grow, to rest, and to shelter—even after it falls.
The comparatively small figures of a multiracial family, glimpsed hiking or sitting on a log for a snack, are clearly entranced by the lovely, lush Pacific Northwest forest setting—readers will be enchanted, too. Pendreigh’s spare accompanying narrative is as grand and stately as the trees themselves. Over a span of years, a towering Douglas fir “suns and sways” until it “grows old. / Sap slows. / Roots let go. / Green goes brown. / The tree falls / down” with a crash and begins a “new life” as “Nurse Log.” The author anthropomorphizes her subject: “She is a place to grow,” and she “mothers” new waves of flora and fauna, from lichen and jelly fungus to towhees and bear cubs. As a reservoir of moisture in drier seasons, the log also nurtures a western hemlock “tree child” that grows from seedling to sapling, “hugs his nurse mother” with roots, and, as the old log crumbles into the soil, rears up over time to become a home and shelter in turn for many species. Pendreigh’s afterword underscores the significant role trees play, even after they’re dead, in many habitats. It’s a profound lesson for young readers to absorb, even as they pore over the expanses of precisely detailed ferns, fungi, and furry forest wildlife in the pictures.
Poetic, revealing, and visually delightful. (Informational picture book. 6-9)Pub Date: March 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781797218670
Page Count: 44
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe.
An introduction to gravity.
The book opens with the most iconic demonstration of gravity, an apple falling. Throughout, Herz tackles both huge concepts—how gravity compresses atoms to form stars and how black holes pull all kinds of matter toward them—and more concrete ones: how gravity allows you to jump up and then come back down to the ground. Gravity narrates in spare yet lyrical verse, explaining how it creates planets and compresses atoms and comparing itself to a hug. “My embrace is tight enough that you don’t float like a balloon, but loose enough that you can run and leap and play.” Gravity personifies itself at times: “I am stubborn—the bigger things are, the harder I pull.” Beautiful illustrations depict swirling planets and black holes alongside racially diverse children playing, running, and jumping, all thanks to gravity. Thorough backmatter discusses how Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity and explains Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. While at times Herz’s explanations may be a bit too technical for some readers, burgeoning scientists will be drawn in.
An in-depth and visually pleasing look at one of the most fundamental forces in the universe. (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: April 15, 2024
ISBN: 9781668936849
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Tilbury House
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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