Problematic for libraries due to the detachable token, but like Mary Javins’ 3-D World Atlas and Tour (2008), the gimmick...
A penguin guide conducts prospective tourists on a whirlwind flight over 28 world cities.
From Amsterdam to Washington, D.C., Li arranges her highly simplified aerial views in alphabetical order. Along with major streets and geographical features, she places on each a select assortment of thumbnail images of architectural highlights, plus comments on distinctive foods, festivals, sports, and other points of interest. Each proto-map also features a handful of arbitrary facts, from characteristic greetings (“Che!” for Buenos Aires, “Ahlan!” for Cairo, “Hey!” for Chicago) to the local language(s) and currency. If half of the chosen cities are in Europe or North America, the other continents (except Antarctica) are at least represented, and though her figures are stylized, the buildings are recognizable and the scattering of tiny humans diverse in dress and skin color. The flyover is sparse of detail and occasionally sloppy; Cairo and Mexico City are misplaced on the world map, for instance, and a head with a feathered bonnet labeled “Aboriginal Canadians” on the Toronto spread is at best an inadequate representation. Still, it provides young armchair travelers with tantalizing notions of each city’s treasures and character as well as a bit of map-reading practice. There is a small removable compass in the cover.
Problematic for libraries due to the detachable token, but like Mary Javins’ 3-D World Atlas and Tour (2008), the gimmick isn’t indispensable to the journey. (review quizzes) (Informational novelty. 6-8)Pub Date: May 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-84365-274-8
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Pavilion/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An engaging mix of gentle behavior modeling and inventive story ideas that may well provide just the push needed to get some...
With a little help from his audience, a young storyteller gets over a solid case of writer’s block in this engaging debut.
Despite the (sometimes creatively spelled) examples produced by all his classmates and the teacher’s assertion that “Stories are everywhere!” Ralph can’t get past putting his name at the top of his paper. One day, lying under the desk in despair, he remembers finding an inchworm in the park. That’s all he has, though, until his classmates’ questions—“Did it feel squishy?” “Did your mom let you keep it?” “Did you name it?”—open the floodgates for a rousing yarn featuring an interloping toddler, a broad comic turn and a dramatic rescue. Hanlon illustrates the episode with childlike scenes done in transparent colors, featuring friendly-looking children with big smiles and widely spaced button eyes. The narrative text is printed in standard type, but the children’s dialogue is rendered in hand-lettered printing within speech balloons. The episode is enhanced with a page of elementary writing tips and the tantalizing titles of his many subsequent stories (“When I Ate Too Much Spaghetti,” “The Scariest Hamster,” “When the Librarian Yelled Really Loud at Me,” etc.) on the back endpapers.
An engaging mix of gentle behavior modeling and inventive story ideas that may well provide just the push needed to get some budding young writers off and running. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-0761461807
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Amazon Children's Publishing
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education.
A young visionary describes his ideal school: “Perfectly planned and impeccably clean. / On a scale, 1 to 10, it’s more like 15!”
In keeping with the self-indulgently fanciful lines of If I Built a Car (2005) and If I Built a House (2012), young Jack outlines in Seussian rhyme a shiny, bright, futuristic facility in which students are swept to open-roofed classes in clear tubes, there are no tests but lots of field trips, and art, music, and science are afterthoughts next to the huge and awesome gym, playground, and lunchroom. A robot and lots of cute puppies (including one in a wheeled cart) greet students at the door, robotically made-to-order lunches range from “PB & jelly to squid, lightly seared,” and the library’s books are all animated popups rather than the “everyday regular” sorts. There are no guards to be seen in the spacious hallways—hardly any adults at all, come to that—and the sparse coed student body features light- and dark-skinned figures in roughly equal numbers, a few with Asian features, and one in a wheelchair. Aside from the lack of restrooms, it seems an idyllic environment—at least for dog-loving children who prefer sports and play over quieter pursuits.
An all-day sugar rush, putting the “fun” back into, er, education. (Picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: Aug. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-525-55291-8
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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