Easy on the eyes but saddled with an overstrained, anthropomorphic premise.
Sometimes acting like animals can be a good thing.
In a series of comparisons that are, to say the least, stretched, Crandall invites readers to wash their ears and feet like jackrabbits, “make” their beds the way orangutans literally do every night, be good listeners like owls, which can “pinpoint even the tiniest scuffle of a mouse beneath the snow,” and look to other animals for similar behavioral cues. Some behaviors do seem at least somewhat analogous—she notes that a polar bear wishing to share another bear’s meal will ask permission “calmly and respectfully” by touching noses. But characterizing two elephants twining trunks as exchanging a “handshake” may be understating the intimacy of the gesture, and her assertion that hippo sweat “works just like sunscreen” may give readers misapprehensions about their own perspiration. Edmonds illustrates the author’s premise with cozy scenes of friendly-looking wild creatures in natural settings, from chimps grooming one another and jackrabbits cleaning themselves (with their tongues) to koalas and sea otters sacked out in their respective habitats and honeybees and humpback whales demonstrating teamwork. No human figures are depicted. The book closes with a brief note from Crandall about the importance of protecting wild animals and their habitats, as well as a short list of reference books.
Easy on the eyes but saddled with an overstrained, anthropomorphic premise. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2023
ISBN: 9780807506288
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: Sept. 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2023
Another playful imagination-stretcher.
Markle invites children to picture themselves living in the homes of 11 wild animals.
As in previous entries in the series, McWilliam’s illustrations of a diverse cast of young people fancifully imitating wild creatures are paired with close-up photos of each animal in a like natural setting. The left side of one spread includes a photo of a black bear nestling in a cozy winter den, while the right side features an image of a human one cuddled up with a bear. On another spread, opposite a photo of honeybees tending to newly hatched offspring, a human “larva” lounges at ease in a honeycomb cell, game controller in hand, as insect attendants dish up goodies. A child with an eye patch reclines on an orb weaver spider’s web, while another wearing a head scarf constructs a castle in a subterranean chamber with help from mound-building termites. Markle adds simple remarks about each type of den, nest, or burrow and basic facts about its typical residents, then closes with a reassuring reminder to readers that they don’t have to live as animals do, because they will “always live where people live.” A select gallery of traditional homes, from igloo and yurt to mudhif, follows a final view of the young cast waving from a variety of differently styled windows.
Another playful imagination-stretcher. (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781339049052
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40.
From two Nobel Peace Prize winners, an invitation to look past sadness and loneliness to the joy that surrounds us.
Bobbing in the wake of 2016’s heavyweight Book of Joy (2016), this brief but buoyant address to young readers offers an earnest insight: “If you just focus on the thing that is making / you sad, then the sadness is all you see. / But if you look around, you will / see that joy is everywhere.” López expands the simply delivered proposal in fresh and lyrical ways—beginning with paired scenes of the authors as solitary children growing up in very different circumstances on (as they put it) “opposite sides of the world,” then meeting as young friends bonded by streams of rainbow bunting and going on to share their exuberantly hued joy with a group of dancers diverse in terms of age, race, culture, and locale while urging readers to do the same. Though on the whole this comes off as a bit bland (the banter and hilarity that characterized the authors’ recorded interchanges are absent here) and their advice just to look away from the sad things may seem facile in view of what too many children are inescapably faced with, still, it’s hard to imagine anyone in the world more qualified to deliver such a message than these two. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Hundreds of pages of unbridled uplift boiled down to 40. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-48423-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
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