A winning treat for yuletide collections and displays.
Animals deserve merry Christmases, too.
This cheery story, expressed in bouncy verse, will not only entertain young readers, but also open their eyes to a most delightful behind-the-scenes practice that goes on at holiday time in many zoos. If kids enjoy visiting zoos around the winter holidays, they may well witness the evidence of the activities discussed here. Opening with a riff on Clement C. Moore’s classic “A Visit From St. Nicholas,” the narrative describes the efforts of zoo personnel and many volunteers as they prepare “Christmas presents” for the animals in their charge. Treats including fruits, vegetables, fish, and meats are cut into holiday shapes, and toys, for play and enrichment opportunities, are gift-wrapped, decorated, and delivered by Santa so that the animals can enjoy nourishing, healthy snacks and revel in entertaining fun. Giraffes munch on kale wreaths; otters, penguins, and polar bears enjoy fish encased in ice blocks; tigers pounce on papier-mâché “zebras”; seals play with balls; and hippos chew edible stars off trees in their enclosures. And, like many young children and pets, zoo animals adore ripping up wrapping paper and ribbon. The dynamic, colorful digital illustrations will elicit big smiles from animal lovers. Human characters are diverse in terms of age and race; Santa presents white.
A winning treat for yuletide collections and displays. (information on how real zoos observe Christmas) (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9781797216560
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
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
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