A tantalizing, if not dependably factual, first flight.
An extraterrestrial’s search for home turns into a tour of the planets.
In the patterned tradition of P.D. Eastman’s Are You My Mother? (sort of), green-skinned Beep zooms from planet to planet, but none turns out to be his own “small and red and beautiful” one. With time for just a name and a fact (“Neptune is the windiest planet”), each merits only a quick flyby, being too big or too hot or, anthropocentrically for Earth, “much too busy.” When at last small, red, beautiful Mars comes into view, Beep lands his saucer joyfully to find mate and child (or equivalents) waiting. Miller strews his cartoon spaceways with rockets, satellites, sparkly stars, and nonhuman passersby of diverse description. Only at Pluto, which Beep zooms by between Earth and Venus (it’s unclear how Houran has plotted Beep’s route) and which sports a “Not a Planet Anymore” sign, do the smiles that he puts on the faces of nearly every astronomical body briefly change to frowns: “Oh dear. Sorry about that. Good luck.” There is no explanation for Pluto’s demotion, not to mention any reference to the solar system’s eight other dwarf planets. Pluto does assume its proper station on the closing planetary panorama, but the hand-wavy approach to strict accuracy kicks Earth’s moon out to share an orbit with Mars. Fortunately there are enough similar but more detailed tours available that primary level readers inspired by Beep’s mini-odyssey to book a deeper interplanetary dive will be spoiled for choice. (This book was reviewed digitally with 8-by-14-inch double-page spreads viewed at actual size.)
A tantalizing, if not dependably factual, first flight. (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-68052-955-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Cottage Door Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
Enticing and eco-friendly.
Why and how to make a rain garden.
Having watched through their classroom window as a “rooftop-rushing, gutter-gushing” downpour sloppily flooded their streets and playground, several racially diverse young children follow their tan-skinned teacher outside to lay out a shallow drainage ditch beneath their school’s downspout, which leads to a patch of ground, where they plant flowers (“native ones with tough, thick roots,” Schaub specifies) to absorb the “mucky runoff” and, in time, draw butterflies and other wildlife. The author follows up her lilting rhyme with more detailed explanations of a rain garden’s function and construction, including a chart to help determine how deep to make the rain garden and a properly cautionary note about locating a site’s buried utility lines before starting to dig; she concludes with a set of leads to online information sources. Gómez goes more for visual appeal than realism. In her scenes, a group of smiling, round-headed, very small children in rain gear industriously lay large stones along a winding border with little apparent effort; nevertheless, her images of the little ones planting generic flowers that are tall and lush just a page turn later do make the outdoorsy project look like fun.
Enticing and eco-friendly. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781324052357
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Norton Young Readers
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An ideal lead-in to more specific guides to aquarium setup and fish care.
A first introduction to our planet’s finny residents, particularly the decidedly uncommon goldfish.
Preceded by an entire piscatorial ABC that extends over six pages, two children of color lecture an audience of house pets (and readers) about such typical fishy features as scales and gills—properly noting that some fish, like certain eels, have no scales and some, like hagfish, no bony spines. The two then zero in on goldfish, explaining that they are easier to keep at home than tropical fish, originated long ago in China, can recognize the faces of people who bring them food, and with proper care live 25 years. All of this information is presented in a mix of dialogue balloons and single lines of commentary in block letters, accompanying cleanly drawn cartoon illustrations that alternate between a domestic setting and labeled portraits of various fish rendered in fine, exact detail. With easily digestible doses of biological and historical background, common-sense cautionary notes, and a buoyant tone, this is an appealing dive for newly independent readers out to enhance the household menagerie.
An ideal lead-in to more specific guides to aquarium setup and fish care. (Informational picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943145-15-7
Page Count: 40
Publisher: TOON Books & Graphics
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
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