Wide-ranging and rousing in tone.
An earnest pep talk for beginning or tentative inventors, artists, upcyclers, and would-be innovators.
Defining creativity broadly enough to include deciding what to wear in the morning, Peterson offers readers plenty of encouragement. Though her grasp on historical background is sometimes weak (evidence of bead making goes back much further than 2,000 years, and Marco Polo did not bring piñatas to Mexico), her tally of potential ways and means of expression displays a free-ranging imagination. Accompanied by a running list of alphabetically arranged creative activities from acting to Zackenstil painting, she jumbles together quick references to everything from scientific inventions to tattoos and hand-painted “kindness rocks,” introductions to working innovators in different countries, a list of traditional media, a catalog of advances in adaptive and assistive technology, and affirmations that arts and crafts are helpful, whether for therapy or raising environmental awareness. “Art, music, dance, theater, architecture and design all have the potential to change the world we live in,” she writes. Her credo can be taken as “Everyone is creative!” In the color photos and graphic images scattered throughout, the figures engaged in everything from dancing to making sand castles are as diverse in age as they are in race, physical ability, and cultural cues.
Wide-ranging and rousing in tone. (glossary, resources, index) (Nonfiction. 11-13)Pub Date: March 11, 2025
ISBN: 9781459837775
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Orca
Review Posted Online: March 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
As in their previous collaborations (Colors of Freedom, Voices of Rape, not reviewed), Bode and Mack portray an issue through the voices of children and adults affected by it. Bode (recently deceased) interviewed preteens, their parents, and adult experts, and organized their responses into parts "For Girls and Boys" and "For Parents." In sections with titles like "Public Recognition" or "What's in Your Heart," her text, addressed directly to the reader, synthesizes many of the responses in a way that should comfort and challenge young and adult readers. At least half of the book is comprised of responses she gathered from her survey, some of which are illustrated in strips by Mack. The result is an engagingly designed book, with questions and topics in bold type so that readers can browse for the recognition they may be looking for. They will need to browse, as there is no index, and young readers will certainly be tempted by the "For Parents" section, and vice versa. A bibliography (with two Spanish titles) and list of Web resources (with mostly live links) will help them seek out more information. They may well have other questions—especially having to do with parents' sexuality—which they don't find answered here, but this is a fine and encouraging place to start. (print and on-line resources) (Non-fiction. 9-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-81945-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
The author of The Snake Scientist (not reviewed) takes the reader along on another adventure, this time to the Bay of Bengal, between India and Bangladesh to the Sundarbans Tiger Preserve in search of man-eating tigers. Beware, he cautions, “Your study subject might be trying to eat you!” The first-person narrative is full of helpful warnings: watch out for the estuarine crocodiles, “the most deadly crocodiles in the world” and the nine different kinds of dangerous sharks, and the poisonous sea snakes, more deadly than the cobra. Interspersed are stories of the people who live in and around the tiger preserve, information on the ecology of the mangrove swamp, myths and legends, and true life accounts of man-eating tigers. (Fortunately, these tigers don’t eat women or children.) The author is clearly on the side of the tigers as she states: “Even if you added up all the people that sick tigers were forced to eat, you wouldn’t get close to the number of tigers killed by people.” She introduces ideas as to why Sundarbans tigers eat so many people, including the theory, “When they attack people, perhaps they are trying to protect the land that they own. And maybe, as the ancient legend says, the tiger really is watching over the forest—for everyone’s benefit.” There are color photographs on every page, showing the landscape, people, and a variety of animals encountered, though glimpses of the tigers are fleeting. The author concludes with some statistics on tigers, information on organizations working to protect them, and a brief bibliography and index. The dramatic cover photo of the tiger will attract readers, and the lively prose will keep them engaged. An appealing science adventure. (Nonfiction. 9-12)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-618-07704-9
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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