There’s a misstep or two, but overall this is both an effective celebration of abilities and needs and a concise and...
Primary-grade math concepts come into play when a club must decide the best way to sell their charity popcorn.
The Community Champions are a varied cast of kids—an unobtrusive mix of genders, races, and one who uses a wheelchair—who do good works around town. Occasionally Driscoll drifts into the too angelic: “The Champs were quiet as they read the messages” of thanks from the previous year’s Thanksgiving project. Other times she speaks what’s better left unsaid: “The more popcorn we sell, the more families we help!” Lizzie burbles. But for the most part, the kids are trying to maximize sales through the deployment of business math—this book is part of the Math Matters series, each of which targets a specific math concept—including distribution and averaging, with terms such as median, mean, value, mode, and range set aside as boxed items for further explanations. The kids even learn how to compete with the grocery store to find the best price margin. In the end, the artwork (mostly depictions of swarms of kids having a good time) and the text feel right: their teacher is proud of their spirit, and the kids get a warm feeling from doing something selfless and meaningful. Three other Math Matters titles publish simultaneously: A Fishy Mystery, by Lisa Harkrader and illustrated by Cary Pillo, introduces Venn diagrams; Let’s Go, Snow!, by Eleanor May and also illustrated by Pillo, looks at temperature measurement; and Otto and the New Girl, by Nan Walker and illustrated by Amy Wummer, explores symmetry.
There’s a misstep or two, but overall this is both an effective celebration of abilities and needs and a concise and accessible use of business math. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-57565-865-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Kane Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends
Gerald the elephant learns a truth familiar to every preschooler—heck, every human: “Waiting is not easy!”
When Piggie cartwheels up to Gerald announcing that she has a surprise for him, Gerald is less than pleased to learn that the “surprise is a surprise.” Gerald pumps Piggie for information (it’s big, it’s pretty, and they can share it), but Piggie holds fast on this basic principle: Gerald will have to wait. Gerald lets out an almighty “GROAN!” Variations on this basic exchange occur throughout the day; Gerald pleads, Piggie insists they must wait; Gerald groans. As the day turns to twilight (signaled by the backgrounds that darken from mauve to gray to charcoal), Gerald gets grumpy. “WE HAVE WASTED THE WHOLE DAY!…And for WHAT!?” Piggie then gestures up to the Milky Way, which an awed Gerald acknowledges “was worth the wait.” Willems relies even more than usual on the slightest of changes in posture, layout and typography, as two waiting figures can’t help but be pretty static. At one point, Piggie assumes the lotus position, infuriating Gerald. Most amusingly, Gerald’s elephantine groans assume weighty physicality in spread-filling speech bubbles that knock Piggie to the ground. And the spectacular, photo-collaged images of the Milky Way that dwarf the two friends makes it clear that it was indeed worth the wait.
A lesson that never grows old, enacted with verve by two favorite friends . (Early reader. 6-8)Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4231-9957-1
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014
A close encounter of the best kind.
Left behind when the space bus departs, a child discovers that the moon isn’t as lifeless as it looks.
While the rest of the space-suited class follows the teacher like ducklings, one laggard carrying crayons and a sketchbook sits down to draw our home planet floating overhead, falls asleep, and wakes to see the bus zooming off. The bright yellow bus, the gaggle of playful field-trippers, and even the dull gray boulders strewn over the equally dull gray lunar surface have a rounded solidity suggestive of Plasticine models in Hare’s wordless but cinematic scenes…as do the rubbery, one-eyed, dull gray creatures (think: those stress-busting dolls with ears that pop out when squeezed) that emerge from the regolith. The mutual shock lasts but a moment before the lunarians eagerly grab the proffered crayons to brighten the bland gray setting with silly designs. The creatures dive into the dust when the bus swoops back down but pop up to exchange goodbye waves with the errant child, who turns out to be an olive-skinned kid with a mop of brown hair last seen drawing one of their new friends with the one crayon—gray, of course—left in the box. Body language is expressive enough in this debut outing to make a verbal narrative superfluous.
A close encounter of the best kind. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4253-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Margaret Ferguson/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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